> If the people requesting the feature care enough, they should go through the hoops necessary to (edit: learn how to code and) become part of the core team.

Why? so they can argue will fellow core devs?

> For this _particular_ feature, it's a "rampant layering violation" -- translucent windows have been available in compositing window managers (Compiz, and whatever that thing that KDE uses) for at least three or four years.

NOPE. Setting the transparency by compiz would make the whole window transparent, including the text, which makes the transparency useless. You need the background to be (semi) transparent, and the text to be fully opaque. This is a non-solution.