The reasons are many

Just because someone is a dev doesn't mean they're an adversarial thinker, or understand systems, code is just a means to an end.

Shell devs for example (which I consider myself), are often deferential to "Core" devs because a javascript framework is a different skillset than say, Bitcoin script.

Incentives are the most obvious reason the higher up you go, as mentioned the funding from Fake L2's is pervasive. Core is an NGO at this stage, Knots-Ocean has overlapping funding. Active development = Activist development.

On the lower-end, it's typical psyop effect... bandwagon jumping, ingrouping, current-thing maximalism, ethos pathos and logos virtue signaling... all one NGO has to do is get a few influenzas to astruturf that you hate poors, newcoiners, and new use-cases if you don't support their stupid ideas that don't actually help any of those things. People will enthusiastically support the dumbest shit imaginable as long as they can tell themselves what a good person they are for doing so. "Useful idiots" exemplify how virtues are easily weaponized.