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My memory is that when dathon first proposed it, the timeline was somewhat shorter (2 or 3 months).
8 months does not seem to me to be enough time to build consensus around this. The fact RDTS has changed in response to feedback does not mean it has formed consensus. I suppose we each have our definitions of what constitutes a "rushed" fork, but my question wasn't about whether it was rushed or not, but rather why it is presented as an emergency.
You make a distinction between "critical" and "urgent" but I do think that many supporters of BIP 110 have used language that BIP 110 is required soon. I believe the original version had a sort of emergency activation method.
But I will accept your position that it is not urgent, but rather critical. Can you explain how such a difference looks in real life? It still seems to me that there are many Bitcoiners who aren't sure about BIP 110, why not extend the timeline 6 months to see if you can get us on board?
the apparently sanctioned methods of adding files to Bitcoin
Where is "adding files" (much less viewing them!) a feature of Bitcoin or Bitcoin Core?
Because I can "add files" just as easily by making a transaction include a valid and contiguous TIFF file even with Knots-policy-standard txs.
I'd disagree with your perspective - it has been presented as critical but not urgent.
It was presented on the mailing list back in November. There wasn't anything meaningful by way of push back. Dathon wrote and interated on the client for a while, rebuilding BIP9 which needed to be done anyway. People pushed back on the language in the BIP using the world "legal" too many times in its rationale (I was one of the ones complaining). That was removed. People complained of it being confiscatory - so the UTXO height checker was added. (There are edge cases with pre-committed TXs I'll not bother getting in to here, yes it's possible someone can be in a crazy scenario where they end up generating a UTXO post-activation that becomes temporarily unspendable but the practical answer it that BIP110 is not confiscatory.)
Two consensus issues were found by Lorinc and another dev whose name I forget (sorry). Both of which were fixed.
We're now about 8 months or so down the line. There is clearly a lot of adoption and no one involved in advocating it (at least to my knowledge) is motivated by anything other than a desire to make Bitcoin better. If there really is something wrong with it (it's 37 lines of new code?) then there is a massive appetite for discovering and making public such a development.
All that is to say I don't consider it "rushed".
It's criticality comes simply from those who have drawn a line wrt arbitrary data, saying that if some revolting media makes it in via the apparently sanctioned methods of adding files to Bitcoin that they'd quit not wishing to host such media on their devices.
I agree with this. What's worse is that you can still be a "Bitcoin" and just make someone else deal with running the node on your behalf. That kind of centralizing pressure is unacceptable to me, and anything imminent that improves centralization or prevents something that would undermine it I will always treat as critical.