If you're in favour of competition and a free and open market, then how do you square that with the rampant protectionism going on in the community right now?  Protectionism can be defined as actions or policies that restrict or restrain external competition.   Core is seen as the "native" code, which some people feel has to be protected or shielded from any outside, external developers, working on their own implementations.  If competition is good, you should welcome more alternative clients.

Also, if were are going to head down the route of corporate entities paying developers, many would feel more comfortable if there were a greater number of corporate entities involved.  As things stand right now, how many companies are directly paying developers?  I'm only aware of five main contributors: Blockstream, MIT, Chaincode Labs, Ciphrex, and BTCC.  And two of those, Chaincode Labs and Ciphrex, are companies run *by* developers themselves, so I'm not even sure that counts.  They're basically self-funded coders.  So it's certainly not a monopoly, but it's not exactly diverse either.