It’s newer, as you say, and rules and precedents are still in the process of being established. And it’s more restrictive, therefore more care has to be taken to design the restrictions as we want them to be (that is ParserComp’s raison d’être, after all).
But FWIW, a similar discussion about archiving was also held in the context of other comps like Spring Thing, Seed Comp, etc. recently, cf. Archiving of Competitions, itch.io, and Third Party Sites.
I’m not sure that I want to take a position on the issue itself (I guess an opt-out policy is fine, with encouragement to stay opted-in and be archived as default), but I’d like to mention a few points:
- the thread linked above does contain a complaint or two (although generally the importance of archiving was emphasized there as well, so I wouldn’t say you’re wrong)
- the principle has not been super-strictly enforced in those comps either in the past; besides examples given in that thread, there was also “Accelerate”, and other games where the archived entries consist of an HTML file linking to an external site
- there might be a form of sampling bias going on – the people intent on not being archived just don’t enter the comps (and they don’t feel it’s necessary or useful to kick up a fuss over it after the fact)
- related to the last point, the non-negligible number of people who enter the comps under a pseudonym might indicate an attitude along the lines of “I don’t mind being archived, no harm done as long as it’s pseudonymous” (but that’s speculation, of course; I dunno).