I think this is an important thing to grok - there is no reason Bitcoin Core should be bound by “consensus” for things unrelated to Bitcoin’s consensus rules.

Bitcoin Core is a software project with a wallet, a GUI, an RPC API, and an implementation of a P2P network for rumoring blocks and transactions. For all of those things, there’s no reason for Bitcoin Core to only act with “consensus” - can you imagine if they needed consensus of the community to make opinionated decisions in the GUI?!

But specifically on the topic of the P2P layer - Bitcoin Core contributors’ jobs are to be good stewards to that implementation and do what is right for Bitcoin to maximize decentralization and robustness. There’s no debate (except from people who don’t understand Bitcoin) that reducing or removing paternalistic censorial standardness limits is not only good but possibly important for Bitcoin’s long-term decentralization.

There is nothing that says anyone has to run Core, and there is nothing that says Bitcoin Core must only do things when there exists consensus in the broader Bitcoin community, especially when it’s abundantly clear those things are important for Bitcoin.

None of this applies, of course, to Bitcoin’s consensus rules - that sub-project of Bitcoin Core has drastically different constraints.

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