Plus arguing with a mamedev like Haze is a lot like wrestling a pig in the mud; after a while you realize the pig likes it.
Indeed, one should take MAME as it is and do whatever he wants with it, never talk or answer directly to mamedevs like him if it's to say anything but "thank you!" or "you're right!" which are the only words they want to hear, ever.
Or maybe formally contribute to the project with a dump/donation/bug-report then forget about it, no one should involve any further than that if he wants to keep his sanity.
Even better; avoid reading them at all, never inquire about their ideology, opinions and policy statements because a fair part are too f*up and will inevitably trigger dismay and anger. The whatsnew.txt is all the news we need from mamedev.
Then any questions and help needed we ask people who've learned to stay at a healthy-enough distance from them and the echo-herd (or what's left of it)
To answer the topic I think one major issue with the retro wave is that it started with a passion for rediscovering and exploring real used games+hardware, then it crashed when it all morphed into collection-mania and pseudo-retro-business.
What maybe still a lot of people haven't yet realized is that emulation followed the same curve, the thriving era is long over and these days anything better, the refinements we hoped for only come to us in tiny doses through slow often unexciting development(s), we'll hardly ever experience earth-shattering emu news again nor witness full-circleness in several areas (lost of things were achieved and completed, lots will
never be no matter how long we wait or spend) or in other words; our expectations were a bit too high.
If we could be really honest though, we'd admit that for a lot of us we're way past the age for all that retro video games stuff, and that goes for mamedevs too
(who in fact for most never really cared about games but are rather a group of extreme geeks more interested in hardware and code and living their specific flavour of the fantasy away from the rest of the other retro crowds, which surely is the most ironic thing that's happened in the entire history of that 'retro' period considering how heavily they contributed to stimulate it against their own - stated - standards)The retro-game demographics no matter which group they fit into, purist gamers, collectors, realist or alien devs, and 'fast-food emu' customers, will continue to decrease to extinction no matter what.
Oh well, like the mammoths and a select few ancient world species, tiny pockets will survive the extinction event for some more time on isolated islands (forums) like you know, now.