Generally I agree. But to be argumentative (NO, not on Slashdot!), I disagree.
Showing horrible stuff allows us to call bullshit on politicians (I am thinking tea party) and their propaganda wing (I am thinking Fox News) who want to claim everything is an act of terrorism. People and groups who would tell you that pressure cookers are 'weapons of mass destruction', and countries that fund real terrorists and flog prisoners in medieval fashion are our friends (I am thinking Saudi Arabia); thereby minimizing what real terrorism and weapons of mass destruction are. This is often so they can surreptitiously push their own agenda.
Being able to see unfiltered events allows us to look critically and say, sure there is an argument that the Boston marathon bombing was terrorism (or attempt at it), but a pressure cooker is NOT a weapon of mass destruction. When we see pictures of dozens and dozens of people killed in chemical weapons attacks by Assad in Syria, we see what WMDs really are so that we take politicians to task for exaggerating things to try to help their own ends.
Or when we see that dipshit on Parliament Hill in Ottawa who killed the cenotaph guard and was killed in the parliament buildings. In his mind he was a terrorist maybe, but Canadians could see him as a radicalized idiot not a terrorist. Panic averted.
Without context, as harsh as it is sometimes to gain, proper judgement cannot be made. We cannot trust the politicians and spin doctors to tell us what something is. We need to do that ourselves and require the information to do so.
I admit there is a danger that people can get desensitized to it, which can also impair judgement. Then we get absolutely fucking ridiculous comparisons trying to demonize people particular interest groups disagree with. For example, people who try to compare Hillary Clinton to Hitler (full disclosure, I lean on the Democrat side, but don't really like Clinton... former director and corporate lawyer for Wallmart, and good friend of the Waltons... not really that different from a Republican except when trying to get elected). What a bunch of fucking nonsense. It completely minimizes the horror that was Hitler's Germany. Any comparison like that is quite plainly, mentally retarded. Being desensitized to the murder of 12 million people and the death of tens of millions in battle and collateral damage from bombings (granted this is partly due to the distance in time) lends itself to unrealistic comparisons. But I think it can be extrapolated to desensitization from over-exposure of items in the news.
CM devs are consumers first. What this means is that they do not divide up devices among other developers, or assign devices like one would at a job. Developers work in their spare time without monetary compensation. Because of this, the developers are free to work on any device they choose to purchase.
Now, what does this mean to you? First off, requesting anywhere in the CM forum, the CM Blog, or the Facebook/Google+/Twitter accounts for device XX to be supported is probably a waste of your time and anybody who reads said request. CyanogenMod does not work on device requests as there is no guaranteeing that a current CM maintainer is even interested in the device. Additionally, its not as simple as 'porting' code, the device trees must be coded from scratch and made to work with the AOSP sourced code and CM enhancements. This takes a large amount of time and effort, especially when the device's OEM fails to release the latest version of Android for it. Second, in hoping a worthy developer sees the post and decides to take up the project... well, that is probably just wishful thinking. Many developers do not like interacting with end users (too much finger pointing between both devs and users or anger directed at the devs for something working other than how the user expects - it happens far too often); because of that, many developers don't frequent the forum (or if they do, they only view the forums for the devices they maintain). The best way to get a device official support is not requesting it from the CM team, but learning how to do it yourself or encouraging a maintainer of an unofficial build to submit their code for review.
So, Cyanogenmod devs will support what strikes their fancy. And if they are no longer interested in a device, it won't be supported any longer. Now if they get financing, maybe this will change as most consumers want some stability and continued support. It is one of the things that could differentiate itself from the phone makers... if they care to. If not, in this regard they won't be any different. And it would be a shame since it is nice to get rid of bloatware.
The vast majority of people will not port their own devices. They either don't have the time or the technical know-how or nether. I will use the stock OS if it isn't available as a stable CM. In fact I do with my P600 Samsung Note. But even if they did, after reading that sticky from the forum, I am less willing to adopt CM and choose to just root the device instead.
I've noticed several design suggestions in your code.