After seeing that Gavin Andresen was actually the one to add the first modification of transaction ordering to accommodate Greg Maxwell's "full blocks" designs, surely in an effort at preserving harmony among the committers, something strikes me:
Any carefully designed, revolutionary, multi-purpose product released into the wild without much guidance on why all the design choices were made is bound to have most of its features dismantled by others in the name of greater efficiency at achieving what subsequent engineers assume the design goals were, in only what they can fathom as being the best way to achieve those goals. Anything whose purpose is unknown will be dismantled as vestigial or a mistake, and various additions will be made in an effort to improve the design even if they ruin it instead.
Anger, contempt, and an uncompromising stance at returning to the original design is an understandable response when the original inventor returns to find the product neutered and perverted.
I can only imagine how the medical experts of today would redesign the human body if given the chance, let alone those of a century ago. "First, get that appendix out of there. Gallbladder? We have a device that works better. Tonsils? Dangerous to include. And hey, let's build insoles into the foot itself so we don't need them in shoes! You know what, no more pubic hair - think of all the crabs cases we'll eliminate. And that inordinate pain when you stub your toe? Tone toe sensitivity
way back. And of course, let's make it so noses can't run or get stuffed, and eyes don't get red or puffy when you cry. And the pinky? I got a great idea. Let's make it a little Swiss army knife thingy. Think of the utility!"
All the seemingly extraneous things have a purpose, but the experts - or even volunteer medical practioners - may decide they don't. And all humans having a knife blade accessible on command is not necessarily a good idea.
Or take the tape measure:
"That square bottom is inefficient given the coil internally is circular. Let's make the whole thing circular to save space."
Except that square base was a conscious design choice. It comes in handy when making an internal measurement.
"And dude, that end hook tab thingy is loose! Obviously it needs to be tightened up."
Except that extra play in the hook is deliberate. Without it, due to the slight thickness of the hook, either measurements where you pull on the hook or push on the hook will be wrong.
I've included both complex and simple examples; had I only mentioned the tape measure, some may object that all such design nuances would be easily noticed over the years by those working closely with the product. If I had mentioned only the human body, some may believe all the changes I mentioned would actually be a good idea. An example most in this thread have the economic understanding to imagine for themselves is the price system, and how - were it somehow in their power - an economic expert might try to ordain a design wherein the price of copper be identical in all places, or many other such "innovations."
To demonstrate how this applies to the design choices of uncapped blocksize, transaction malleability, integrated witness data, the Merkle tree structure, an uncleaned stack, transactions being transparent and traceable, non-canonical ordering, lack of preconsensus, OP_CODESEPARATOR, UTXOs instead of accounts, the first-seen rule, and other design decisions of Bitcoin v0.1 isn't the aim of this comment. Rather to think, provisionally, if these all really did have a well-thought-out purpose but were being "improved" roughshod, how an inventor might react.
