You misunderstand. There is no optimizing, he built a non-idiomatic library that people love. It has pros and cons -- he is going to maintain it. There is no "fixing" it -- what makes people love it is it being NON-IDIOMATIC.

ADDITIONALLY -- he has built something that is idiomatic and looks to solve the same problem set as the original tool. This is a "have your cake and eat it too" situation.