> What argument are you actually trying to make here?
That you're mistaken in your one-sided generalization of the benefits of standards.
> So your position, then, is that all standards include "needless complexity?"
No, that's just another extreme you've made up.
> Yea.. that's why the word "like" is present, it implies a near association, not a direct accusation.
Your mistake is before "like", you can't be "about actively breaking systems" when you explicitly say that no systems will be broken
> "see if I care."
That this is false is also easy to see - the author reverted a change after he realized it breaks something ancient, so clearly he does care.
> standards prevent people from having to debug dumb issues that could have been avoided.
Not to circle the conversaion back to my original response to your point: why do you think "Almost all implementations" break the standard and "accept a bare NL"? Could it be that such unintuitive limitations don't prevent anything, and people still have to debug "dumb issues" because common expectations are more powerful?