it's not just about being gentle: it's that there are thousands of
.config options that are confusing to most users, so our defaults and
rules must make sense. If we think that an approach is superior (which
your new RTC code certainly is), we have to take up the responsibility
of pushing that as a prominent, default choice and excluding the old
code. That ends up benefiting everyone, reduces complexity of the
kernel. You wont see anyone shed tears for the old code.