It is called a free ride. Given that the overwhelming majority -- >90% -- application for the bitcoin blockchain is currency use, using full nodes as dumb data storage terminals is simply abusing an all-volunteer network resource. The network replicates transaction data, so why not come along for a free ride?
Rather than engage the existing community, mastercoin and counterparty simply flipped an "on" switch and started using bitcoin P2P nodes as unwanted data stores. An unspent transaction output was never meant to be used as arbitrary data storage. The fact that it can be abused as such does not make it right, or remotely efficient, or the best solution.
The UTXO (unspent transaction output) database is the entire network's fast access database. Every single node needs that database to be as small as possible, for best processing of network transactions. Encoding arbitrary data into unspent outputs is network-wide abuse, plain and simple. The entire network bears the cost.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Jeff. So, will you help us start engaging with the existing bitcoin core-dev community? It's in Counterparty's interests to act as a responsible partner as we need the bitcoin blockchain if we are to survive. Will you let us know how we can start working together on these questions?
What would you recommend as some first steps we can take to start to engage and build a constructive relationship?