The project lead (Linus) pushed back first with reasonable-looking point, but it is hit back by a thorough research. And finally a clever workaround broke it through.
It was very energizing to me who has habit to rely on non-engineering tools to push through these kind of discussions.
Or what I run into “Is this used …. and does it even ‘work’?!?!”
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence
“Beware of the bull”
"Chesterton's Permalinked Fence" is generally straightforward to reason about.
Another system watched the version control system for who added that line of logging, and sent them status emails. After the moribund logging had been in production for two weeks, the emails turned into nag emails to either remove the code, or at least remove the moribund logging if you decided against removing the code.