is there a reason for not making the front ends dynamic libraries which could be linked by any program that wants to parse source code?
Quoth the Stallman himself:
One of our main goals for GCC is to prevent any parts of it from being used together with non-free software. Thus, we have deliberately avoided many things that might possibly have the effect of facilitating such usage, even if that consequence wasn't a certainty. We're looking for new methods now to try to prevent this, and the outcome of this search would be very important in our decision of what to do.
Not only is the poor design true, it was very intentional. This is why we need the LLVM project. KDevelop and such shouldn't have to write their own compiler front ends to get feature parity with Visual Studio; but right now they do.
"Ninety percent of baseball is half mental." -- Yogi Berra