Both Linus and Kent drive a hard bargain, and it's not as simple as finding someone else to blindly forward bcachefs patches. At the first sign of conflict, the poor person in the middle would have no power, no way to make anyone back down, and we'd be back to square one.
It's in limbo, and there is still time, but if left to bitrot it will be removed eventually.
The issue is that I have never seen Kent back down a single time. Kent will explain in details why the rules are bullshit and don't apply in this particular case, every single time, without any room for compromise.
If the only problem was when to send patches, that would be one thing. But disagreements over patches aren't just a timing problem that can be routed around.
The point of contention here was a patch within fs/bcachefs/, which was repair code to make sure users didn't lose data.
If we can't have clear boundaries and delineations of responsibility, there really is no future for bcachefs in the kernel; my core mission is a rock solid commitment to reliability and robustness, including being responsive to issues users hit, and we've seen repeatedly that the kernel process does not share those priorities.
Has he ever even been involved with a bcachefs bug? No, aside from arguing against shipping bugfixes.
Has he contributed in any way, besides merging code? No...
Has he set rules or guidelines that benefited bcachefs reliability? No, but he has shouted down talk about automated testing.
I think you're confusing power with responsibility.
You are one of those maintainers (not any more). Your code can be taken into the bundle (not any more), but on the bundle's schedule, not yours. You have consistently failed to understand that the train doesn't wait for you - if you are late, you get on the next one. If you don't want to get on the next one, then don't be late. Normal people, after missing a train once or twice, would adjust their schedule accordingly so they won't miss it next time. But your exclusive, repeated reaction has been to yell at the train driver and the station master, which is why you've been kicked out of the station.
Have you ever ridden a train, by the way? Were you on time? (Deutsche Bahn doesn't count because they're not on time)