It's because we've tried Meshtastic and MeshCore. Look at where the bytes go in the network. Meshtastic it's usually under 5% of traffic is text and for MeshCore it's over 50%. If you want to communicate MeshCore is designed to do that.
He went off the rails as a reactionary move is how I see it. He got mad because his issue was deleted. I'm banned from the discord for a disagreement with one of the developers; but I've done code contributions to the project as well.
There's only so much bandwidth available so pick and choose what the firmware is good at. MeshCore went all in on messaging and tracing. Meshtastic is a more noisy protocol which is perfect for camping and hiking in small groups.
You'd need two radios, one antenna stacked on top of each other. Z offset of a minimum height of 1m/3'. In the X,Y offset of 0,0. You want high gain 8-10db antennas in this arrangement; you'd need more space between if you use lower gain antennas.
If you're looking for parts the Diamond BC920 is the best antenna. Station G2 with a $100 3-4mhz cavity filter for each frequency as well.
They're looking at ways to have regular nodes repeat on the network. Right now it's a one line change to enable it. Doing it well and smart is what's holding it back