The issues here never have been of a technical nature, wether pointers are exposed or not.
Thats a minor design detail that always can be discussed.
The point is that Sun always claims to be driven by the community and how parts of that community have been treated in this case. Have not been informed, integrated, consulted.
It is not really a big deal - there just have been other possibilities to establish things without excluding the community.
“We didn’t talk the people bc. their API showed this or that detail” … thats nonsense, a poor excuse.