> Infinality (v38) was substituted by v40 in 2.13.1. Anybody requesting
> v38 got v40 instead... and nobody even noticed. That is the whole
> point of the exercise: v40 is perfectly capable and better than just
> good enough. Now the code is physically gone for good. It is much
> better to improve faster and lighter v40 moving forward than dwelling
> on unmaintained, poorly understood, and riddled with exceptions v38.
"Better" is your personal opinion. Anyway, I think some of others' "personal opinion" (different from yours) is simply based on familiarity - some people are just more familiar with MS/Apple rendering, and therefore prefer it. In the end of the day, FreeType is not MS/Apple font scaler. Fact.
As long as v38 is different from v40, some part of it is closer than v40 to MS/Apple's. Also fact.