Ruined by appstore policies

This was good software until the current dev became hellbent on distributing it through the appstore rather than traditional means. Adding it to the appstore meant adhering to Apples "guidelines", which effectively strip down fully functional computer software, into measly sub-par, semi-functional "apps". Before this abomination took hold, X-Chat Aqua was decent software; rather than fixing up the codebase and bringing it on par with Linux/Windows, we have this. The app sandboxing reduces all plugin functionality to moot, what is the point of having Python/Perl plugins when 98% of the system remains inaccessible?
The last usable, reliable, stable release is Aqua 0.17.3 from 3 years ago, without the disgusting restrictions; the last time X-Chat could be called "software", not an "app"... Atleast fork the project to have a functional build without the ridiculous policies, or are we just waiting for Hexchat to make this completely obsolete?
Dont believe me? Go to the Github page and see for yourself how many orders of magnitude better the Aqua version really is.

Bond Pard about XChat Azure