C'mon that's totally unfair to the majority of developers (again). It is not simply a 'sacred cow' and that totally over-simplifies the problem while casting negative aspersions against most of the developers.
These guys have worked themselves to the point of mental exhaustion in some cases to keep this thing scaling up to handle the transaction growth rate thus far and have made huge advances. They would all simply agree (ya know, a consensus) to raise the limit if it was such an obvious 'fix', it is not and there are no obvious fixes, that is just wishful thinking by the unthinking majority. Raising the limit is the last ditch 'suck it and see' hail mary pass when everything else has been optimised as much as possible ...
If the limit gets raised substantially above the technological improvements growth rate I'll be pulling the vast majority of my investment out because it is not going to be operating like we thought it would, i.e. it won't be a clearing and settlement digital gold network but a paypal2.0, fun internet googlesque reversable, traceable payments network
You are expanding my criticism of the handling of this 1MB issue to a general criticism of the developers. I have nothing but admiration for what they have done for many years, but if it takes a bit of shock-value to get this one issue dealt with - then it is worth it, because ignoring it could undermine the benefit of years of dev work (by stalling the ecosystem and its network effect).
In August last year I attempted a good case for a 3MB limit, trying to buy time, but even this moderate increase found little favor.
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/709970.msg8129058#msg8129058Since then, the LN paper* has appeared, and there is even less reason for delay in buying time, because there is a very real chance that a high-volume layer can be built over Bitcoin while keeping main-chain usage to a minimum. Why won't the devs buy a few years?
(I note that ArcticMine who was active in the 1MB debate last year has given up on the argument and moved his investment into Monero. This problem is already forcing people away from Bitcoin and the limit is not yet impinging on user-experience).
I really hate conspiracy theories, and am not quite yet with JR on how there might be ulterior motives behind the scenes. But what else can be done to advance a solution?
*edit: Joseph Poon's and Thaddeus Dryja's paper