[General Topics] Perseus:
I am posting here as a developer and not as a Moderator. So please keep that in mind as you read the following comments. Also I have been rather late to this thread and others have already raised arguably correct points and answers to what Mike had said in the OP. So I might just rehash it to indicate my support or opinion. Once again, my opinions bellow are as a developer.

Indeed this is a Pet peeve. As a developer, I am and I will be royally upset when I am facing similar situation. Like you as well as Mike had said in the OP, how do we tell who's to tell whether that change is small or big ? Indeed string changes are minor and should be considered as a Kang but ONLY IF the other person did not give due credit to you. Here I am going to kang Mazda's term, repo sync warrior. (And hope that's okey.) That applies whether its a small change or a big change. Per GPL, the sync warrior is required to give credit no matter what. There is an increasing reluctance on part of a minority of developers to give credit where its due. It takes the Moderators to threaten with thread closures to get compliance. Even then the said warrior is known to sneak when the moderator is not looking to remove the credit. Then either it takes the limited pool of volunteers to either keep on checking or I keep an eye out. A stronger punishment to such repeat offenders would deter them greatly and increase my confidence as well.

To the second part. if its a big change and either its apparent or the said warrior is able to detail it, then Kudos to them! Also on the same point though, many of us seem to forget XDA Rule 12. Using the work of others and others seems to overuse it. For ex, if I created some cool app that has some nifty feature, sure I can claim exclusivity and withheld permissions. Same goes for Rom features as well. However, if someone simply added few commits to a kernel to make it up-to-date with latest version of Android, to me, there's no grounds to claim exclusivity. If a permission is respectfully asked and yet is declined by the developer, then that's unfair to the requestor. No I am not talking about selective sharing (although that too is a problem). Should not the Rule 12 give some leeway out of that ? Correction, shouldn't we as developer ask for the said leeway ? Now as to the revoking permission, it truly has to be extenuating circumstances to revoke the permission once given. Otherwise the other person is likely to cry fowl won't they ? Don't we need to have Rule 12 be explicit to cover this ? Also while on the same topic, no one has said this before me, say Kitkat version of a rom or Kernel was given permission to use. Per current rule 12, that permission applies to MM or even N versions of that rom. Should we (developers) not be more vocal to the fact that, such carry forward of permissions are sometimes detrimental to the painstaking efforts the developer puts in ? We all know, that implementing the same feature in N with SEL enforcing can be a major Pain compared to KK. Yet no one has decried this carryforwarding.

Entitled Users, Oh my, isn't that a pet peeve for us all ? Won't read the op but wants spoonfeeding ? I'd like to be able to remove such posts rather than ignoring them as it leads to drama. But here's the thing right, if I were to remove the post, what would stop that user from reposting in the thread ? Hell what would stop them from posting elsewhere calling me names for removing my posts ? (Insert thread-Nazi comment here). Someone would have to tell them why it was removed so they won't ask elsewhere or repeat. Also just because someone politely agrees to disagree, then I shouldn't remove their post right ? I have seen in several instances, where some of the developers have pointedly shows entitled attitude themselves. For ex, one had placed comments in the OP that the said rom worked on their specific carrier variant of the device. So the rom HAS TO work for all other carrier variants. Do not complain in the thread if it did not. Seriously ? Do you realistically think that's fair ?

On the other hand, Seriously, how many of us know that in Custom ROM Central forum, there ARE permissions given to the Team leads of the individual teams to actually moderate their own area including moving threads to their Q&A Forum ? I fail to understand why other teams had never applied or have a presence in that forum. Just to make sure, for several teams, that forum contains unofficial build's threads made as well. Perhaps a request be made to XDA to see if all of the team's threads reside there but have a redirect in the device AD/OD forum ? There's ways to moderate for Developers. Its just that its not widely known.

EDIT - Last but not the least, speaking to the lack of Developer Moderators. Sure there aren't many. Those who are moderators might not have developer background. But isn't that our problem as well ? Why is it that most of the developers consider this role as akin to Bubonic Plague meets Ebola ? If the Developers do not wish to apply or volunteer the time, how on God's Green Earth XDA Would have Dev Mods ?