Not sure what the counter argument is really driving at. So, because some people are using a function or an unworthy directive, then there can't be a major change in that aspect? Many languages clean up many unused functions, directives and so more just to meet some proper standard. I'm been shamed whenever I read about PHP on blogs comments, e.g people saying PHP is a trash language, everything goes and proper changes are not ready until nothing happen.
Not sure where this project is headed, some will want a code to stay because they want easy version upgrade(must everyone upgrade? ) and those who want to shake things up won't be allowed to do so. That's why the internals dev are reducing everyday while other languages are increasing in dev. PHP isn't going the right direction, coz there's not even a direction, everything is based on argument and counterargument.
