FACT is: 2.0 GOLD is 7 years old and 2.1 is long overdue
Correct. It was never meant to be a big release was already overdue 5 years ago when I tried to re-rail it, though I consciously added new features to it then because a release that no-one cared about because it had nothing compelling in it was worse than no release at all. But even I never expected it to take another 5 years.
FACT is: the team has changed and learned from its mismanagement
You say this with such certainty.
FACT is: suggestions are worthless because everything is swept off the table with "it's feature-locked"
Most suggestions are not worthless because of feature lock. Most suggestions aren't worth much because they're not really suitable for a generic piece of software - many of them would be very suitable if building a gaming forum or a roleplay forum or some other specific kind of forum, but not a general purpose forum.
so all these nervecutting word-wars about nothing can finally take their end
They're not about nothing. They're just about things you don't care about - that doesn't mean others don't care.