Feel free to implement your code changes on the alt of your choice. Bitcoin node users remain unaffected.
It's over right? The whole attempt to sideline the bitcoin development team failed, and now that uncertainty has been removed, the price of bitcoin is skyrocketing. That's because bitcoin is valuable for what it is, not for unproven use-cases that decrease bitcoin security. We will get to those use-cases through layering bitcoin, and will not have to sacrifice security to do it.
Accept it. Move on.