> All that being said, I have often thought that what MAME really needs for any > individual game is a very clear and well documented specification of what needs to be > done to accurately represent that game in MAME.
You're making the exact identical mistake as xiaou2: you're assuming MAME is a corporate product aimed at end users. MAME is not intended to be professional or saleable or ISO 9000 compliant. It is the vector sum of the interests and directions of all of the contributors, full stop.
If you want to fix this problem, talk to Derrick Renaud. He is the alpha and the omega of inputs and gear shifts. And that's why it was stupid for xiaou2 to piss him off.