The result is that features people like are removed because ‘the developer knows best how it should be done’ and people are disgruntled.

Take Adium as an example. The default text entry ares is one line, and it auto expands as you type. But you can click and drag it if you want it bigger. How hard would it honestly have been to implement that feature in Pidgin? In fact, the resizable feature was there – and it was DELIBERATELY removed! This is definitely a case of “we’ll tell you how the application works, if you don’t like it, it’s because you just don’t get it”.