Oh, please. I have a "grip".
Again, please don't make gross, blanket generalizations. I've been in Doug's shoes, and still am. *MY* largest and oldest forum is 18 years old now. My sites have also been extremely popular over the years, and I currently have over 8 million registered users and generating millions of page view per week. My forum (vB4) alone has over three times the number of posts on TMC and four times the number of threads. So I know "Doug's shoes" very well. Just because *YOU* support Doug's decision doesn't mean everyone else "doesn't have a grip" or doesn't understand all of the issues at hand. We actually do. Very well, in fact.
Yes, "Responsive Design" is the "holy grail" for WEBSITES. No responsive website, however well written, will ever approach the UI/UX of a native application like Tapatalk or Forumrunner. Responsive Design is not the "holy grail" for native mobile applications. There's a very clear reason why so many people are still campaigning for access to TaT. The web interface is adequate, but it's not nearly as useful or easy to use as a native application, nor will it be.
100% correct on all counts. As an IT security executive I know that 99% of the time things can indeed be worked out. It's a question of wanting to make it happen. If the decision is revenue driven it complicates things but not a whole lot.