Well, those two are not mutually exclusive. Things like the body formatting are at the core of the system and as such somewhat susceptible to fall prey to inertia more quickly than things on the outskirts. Then again, I could not find the discussion you refer to, so I can only speculate here.
I would love to see my efforts blossom into directly supporting or at least aiding the process of keeping RCM up with the demands of the userbase by reducing that inertia. If I have done my homework correctly, it should at the very least make it easier to contribute to the project and keep contributions cohesive without increasing technological debt. In the best case scenario, we will end up cutting down on existing technological debt.
Finally - I don't think that the message count is an indication of focus. Most of the messages in this thread are from me, anyhow. So if anything, they're proof that I like to post a lot of status updates.