I do disagree. I want to retain the ability to target the Z-machine until I run out of space. Extensions are generally quite compact – optimized in a way games typically aren’t – and I think it’s quite possible to make a small game targeting the Z-machine which uses a bunch of seemingly-complicated (but actually quite small, when compiled) extensions. After digging into the innards for a while, I don’t see much which varies between the two. I’d probably just build a Z-machine malloc. (Though for the thing I’m trying to implement right now, I actually just want a data stack: alloca.)
As has happened repeatedly before with Inform, the major problem users are facing is bad documentation: it’s not documented what’s supported and what isn’t. It never has been. “Literate programming” apparently didn’t help much with this. You can get away with very quirky behavior if it’s well-documented. (I still think Inform 7 needs a real reference manual, which it has never had. With the code open-sourced, it’s now possible for a third party to write it.)
Individual property declarations are highly useful and should be supported in Inter. “Property individual propname;” should be sufficient.
P.S. I’ve been working on a different programming project for the last month. I’m back for now.