They also seem to be reductive or misleading takes. Being in favor of no more protocol changes ≠ no maintenance on the protocol.
I’m struggling to make sense of the whole thing.
The more likely scenario is we're talking past each other due to holding different definitions or assumptions. For example, the claim that "no more protocol changes doesn't equate to no more protocol maintenance" doesn't compute for me. It sounds like a conflation of maintaining client software implementations and actual protocol development. Software has to be constantly maintained. Protocols don't. But there's always room for improvement.