I wonder... have you heard Rich Hickey ever talk about many of those patches and why they haven't been accepted yet? Clojure has a great deal of conformity across its abstractions and interfaces. It is really easy to compose things together. A lot of thought and careful planning goes into that. Many patches etc run afoul of that because they don't meet that standard.

As to libraries, you don't need to be blessed for a library to go. How exactly does clojure core neglect a library? By not taking it into the core?

I didn't read this as being about neglect. I think his argument was that you need to give people what they want or they will leave. I don't find any validity in that. There are plenty of BDFL projects that do quite well.

I think the real message is... 'I want these things. Why won't get you give them to me.' If this was anything other than a bit of a childish rant, there would have been much better channels to carry it out in.

If you want people to change, you don't attack them in public. If you want to make yourself feel good and vent, you attack people in public.