> Do you really think it is accurate to say Gitea LTD is merely gatekeeping and not actually doing a ton of work to steer and maintain this project?

One does not preclude the other.

> And since the complaining commenter is CTO of a company who benefits from being able to include this feature in his company's own private fork, doesn't he have a conflict of interest as well?

He isn't controlling what goes into community repo, so that's irrelevant.