a) This is not a “feature request”, this is a bug
b) Nate Graham himself has promised that the bug will be fixed (in case you haven’t read the 500 bug reports)
c) KDE is not only developed by volunteers.
See: https://curius.de/2021/05/open-source-entwicklung-freiwillige-oder-firmen/
KDE has unfortunately not disclosed the affiliation of its developers,
but due to known sponsorships, e.g. by blue systems, one can assume that not all are volunteers here either.
@whjjackwhite @nora
The lack of transparency leads one to suspect that other companies also pay permanent developers. Among others Trolltech and SuSE.
d) The “companies” you mention are for the most part not companies but scientific institutions. You can quickly compile something there if it doesn’t work. This is not the case with companies that have to earn money.
e) The KDE I find at Cern has the version number 3.