Someone asking a question doesnt merit the insult of saying they “would never ask if they used a terminal.” I have no particular dog in this fight, but not being a dick isn’t that hard.

This is true, and something that I'm working on. For some reason my brain is uncharitable in these situations and I interpret it not as a simple question but a sarcastically hostile put down in the form of a question. In this case, "Why would you be dumb and not just put things in /home". That really is a silly interpretation of the OP question, so I apologize.

As to using this standard, just because this is your preferred standard, doesnt mean its the only standard.

Sure, but the OP was essentially asking "Why isn't dumping everything into a user's /home the standard? Why are you advocating for something different?"

Based on their own description, they aren’t even an official standard, just one in “very active” use.

There are a LOT of "unofficial standards" that are very impactful. System D can be considered among those. The page you link to does talk about a lot of specifications, but it also says that a lot of them are already under the XDG specification or the reason for XDG is to bring such a scheme under a single specification, i.e. XDG.

So why this, specifically? Just because its what you’re already doing?

• yes I do use it, so I am definitely biased in that regard
• it bring a bunch of disparate mostly abandoned specification into a single, active one
• it's the active specification that has learned from past attempts