I don't necessarily disagree. I haven't really taken a close look at how this is implemented, but it also hasn't really been a high priority to revisit, at least not for me. There are still plenty of more fundamental features to get right first in my opinion. The big one I have worked on for the next piefed version is to get local sticky posts working for example.

My experience from working with rimu though is that he has been pretty receptive with contributions to make it less opinionated in these kinds of ways. I have removed or made optional tons of stuff that he spent time coding and I haven't really gotten any pushback from him over it. I know it kind of makes me sound like a douche to just say open a PR, but if somebody out there feels strongly about this filter, that is probably the fastest way to get it changed.