The lack of traffic is likely to either be treated as a bigger concern than than the one you raised or trivialize your concern. That is, either "we don't want to discourage people from posting" or "there's so little traffic it's not worth caring about". And maybe some other similar interpretations. But the end result is the same -- no significant change to Perl News, which is exactly what happened. Which is why you were tilting at windmills.

Regarding "arrogance", my intent was to avoid the "crotchety" issue. Based on my lack of success on that front, I was apparently titling at windmills as well....