It’s not a bug, it’s a subtle unsupported corner case

One of the Lua authors responded to your Lua bug request now: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.lua.general/90101

The response gives me faith that the problems you discuss do not plague all projects :).

It may be that other responders, not being directly involved in development, were trying to help you find a workaround to unblock you. For other end-users trying to be helpful, the most helpful thing they can often do is post a workaround, given that they don't maintain the project either. Perhaps these responses could be worded more eloquently (admitting you might have found a bug), but that doesn't necessarily mean they're malicious.

One solution to these kinds of social situations is to have the person filing the issue to close it in the end. This way the issuer is empowered to verify that either there was no issue in the first place, or that the proposed fix by a developer in fact actually fixes the person's real issue.