This page is part of the web mail archives of SRFI 13 from before July 7th, 2015. The new archives for SRFI 13 contain all messages, not just those from before July 7th, 2015.
I still don't like the current practice of allowing START and END parameters to almost every procedures, I haven't reread srfi-13 lately, but remember coming to the same conclusion. I think that srfi-13 is valuable even if the parameters remain, but also predict that they will eventually cause an alternative, somewhat incompatible SRFI to be created. That's a good thing. SRFI-13 is best existing practice and works today. No SRFI is the last word on its subject. -t