Inappropriate on all counts.
This forum and others like it are proof positive that people certainly DO care about arcade games- still.
There are even people who don't want to make machines for somebody else's pay to play arcade!
And not just old farts.
People line up to play the machine I gave my friend to put in his surf shop.
And nearly all of them are under 25.
The purpose of mame (from those who have built and maintained/updated it) has obviously never been to make money.
That hasn't stopped many people from trying to profit from other people's efforts all over this hobby however.
To my knowledge the mame devs build what preserves the history of the machines and also what entertains them, even as they know well that what they give away may go to those who would profit from it.
I wouldn't arrogate to myself that any dev does anything in regard to what I do or care about.
We all benefit from their gracious whimsy, both directly if you have built a mame machine and laterally also because I doubt that there would have been a renaissance of these games to spawn A1Up and all the others if not for their efforts.
It would be pretty obnoxious to complain.
Calling nitrogen_widget a jerk is childish and ignorant.
And I think as I do based entirely on what any particular individual says/does.
Talk is cheap though, so it's mostly does.