I would rather not establish precedent that node operators are responsible for the data on the block chain. That opens up a trivial attack vector by literally anybody. Making the argument that it’s a public space and therefore individual people aren’t responsible is much safer/robust over the long term

Bitcoin actually does support arbitrary data greater than 80 bytes. Your node will relay it too, after a miner mines it.

What’s more dangerous - influencers being able to force dev behavior to change, or the devs themselves?

How would it kill Bitcoin?

“Despite the controversy” - this is IMO the biggest issue here. Influencers making non-technically sound arguments should not be able to change the course of dev work