I think people are generally starting to understand that. The people that request these features are generally people who don’t understand what Sponge is, what an API is for, or something along those lines; especially for people new to the Sponge community who skip the introduction or parts of it. I believe there is a few other posts that replicate this general idea though. (The thread @octoshrimpy posted, as well as this one, and some of the links linking to that post)
I can’t tell if you were trying to compare Sponge to Essentials, but those are two different things entirely (I’m sure you realize). They don’t really deserve comparison, as they work in fundamentally different ways, although I’d agree Essentials was bloated.