The moment you get over expecting Clojure to behave like a typical "open source" project and understand it is Rich Hickey's personal project (+ Cognitect's), which happens to also be available to you, if you want to use it, then the whole thing makes more sense. Some frustration disappears. You know where you stand, and what to expect.
Hickey and Cognitect have every right to run it the way they like. IMO, the only thing they don't do right is to communicate their intentions. There's a pretense maintained around it being an "open source" project, when it really isn't, not in the way that python is open source.
Use it if it works for you. Otherwise don't. Don't expect to have a voice, and don't expect you'll be able to contribute much, and don't expect that something will be fixed unless it suits Hickey's Cognitect's agenda.
I use ClojureScript, knowing and accepting these things (with some sadness), because I think the language gives me a competitive edge.