I think "rename everything" doesn't look like a viable option?

> Again you strawman my argument. Try to understand my central point, and
> then reply to that instead of details of "how you do it right now and that
> works for you".

This is not very constructive. Entering a culture and saying "hey, now you
do everything this way" most probably won't lead to progress, I fear.

I get your points, but now: what could be a way forward?

Well I never said "do everything this way". I was asked to clarify my opinion so I did.

Anyway, I think like Stefan proposed a simple way would be to introduce a "clean namespace API" where old names can be aliases to the new names (or maybe new names are aliases to the old ones)

So, basically something like list.el containing:

(defalias 'list-append 'append)

(defalias 'list-map 'mapcar)

(defalias 'list-add 'add-to-list)

I also think having a clean API would be more newbies-friendly and thus favor contribution from new authors, but it's just a gut feeling.

Kind regards,

Philippe