I don't know the full story about Apple and GCC; I haven't read all of the mailing list traffic during the relevant period, nor was I around to hear about offline conversations. Certainly I can see Apple modifying bits of GCC to make it more suitable for IDE integration and upstream not caring about that. Apple did have ways of getting such changes in, though; it's possible they didn't care enough to push them upstream.

As for "elitist arrogance", I think what you are getting at is that you see the FSF's policies as erecting a moat and a wall around GCC and telling the rabble to stay out while the nobility quietly hack away at their desks. If I have understood you correctly, then I see the argument, but I do not agree with it. As long as GCC is an FSF project, that's just the way things are going to be. I don't think the FSF has set out with the intent to be "elitist"; it's unfortunate if that's the way the policy is perceived. Feel free to correct me; it's possible that I've misunderstood you.

The FSF does not, on the whole, dictate the technical direction of the project. So the goodness or badness of technical changes and any "elitism" associated with acceptance or rejection of such changes is another issue.

Perhaps things will change if GCC ever disassociated itself from the FSF: another egcs-style fork or something more dramatic. There have been small rumblings of such a change, but I think such an event is quite unlikely.