FWIW this came after a long long period of the DNSOP working group throwing hate and venom on this form of hithertofore non-normative DNS use cases. This was a very hot topic and it seemed like absolutely no progress was going to be made making this happen for a long time due to the DNSOPS wg.

I don't have good citations- would love to gather them again- but it was only after other IETF members started questioning the absurd rejectionist behavior of the DNSOP working group that this changed, and the .onion draft was allowed to get due status.

I can't think of any case in IETF history of a draft being so hotly denied and rejected. Very interesting story, look forward to someone telling it better than I.