Some observations:-

I have never advocated bells and whistles, it was after seeing people post how to work with > 16 vars and some form of basic data handling. When I used Pbpro many years ago, this was what I wanted and like your doing now I had workarounds. But I got fed up with doing it. Bigger variables eat code space but inevitably some times I have to use them. Luckily I don't have to do it my self now. Better data handling is a must, Most people here will stick a Eeprom on so they can have better lookup tables, unless I have massive tables I fit them all in the pic, it's easy.

As the last post said if every software company froze there development when it was 100% stable we would not even have got to Ada or one of the really early OS's. Product development is a part of life, unfortunately moving forward entails problems. Look at the Melabs site you will see that after years of standing still with a basic compiler there still coming across problems.

Problems always get fixed and you can do what a lot of people do and stick with the version that works for you then until you consider the new version has been around long enough to make you happy or there is a feature you have to have.

What is basically being said is Melabs is not capable after all these years of adding a few basic features with out bringing the lot crashing down around your ankles. They could have added 32 vars and tested it for 2 years but have decided to milk this product for all it's worth.

This is all my own personal opinion and as I always say if you happy with what you've got then stick with it. If not kick up a fuss or go elsewhere. Sitting around trying to make workarounds seems not to make sense, throw a few arrows, kick up a stink it will in the end make a better compiler.

What I don't think works is when there is constructive criticism (however sarcastic) its nice to slam them down. Take it on the chin like a man (or a woman) and be constructive in return.