But why does a developer have to work on the kernel? I believe the mindset of older, "more experienced" developers of Linux that new developers must know the kernel is exactly the reason why new blood isn't being injected into the ranks of Linux developers.

He is odd, to say the least. Nothing wrong with being odd, but that is what he is, and from what I can tell, he doesn't care. If you are offended by the notion that others see him as odd/weird/strange, then the problem is yours and yours alone, because he doesn't seem to care. Perhaps you should do some navel gazing, because he has...and he has found mushrooms! (Sorry, couldn't resist)

True, you are taking some of the load off of the local air connection, but then you are connecting to their internal routing. To the bigger point, I agree that they are nickel-and-diming us.

LOL. How about just typing the hostname and pressing -enter? Most browsers today have this and other keystroke time-savers built in.