They're not shying away from simplicity, but from ambiguity, especially when the range of possible interpretations includes being a jerk. We don't have nonverbal channels to communicate in this format, unlike in person, where positive intent has many easy ways to come across. Here the only channel we have is words, so it needs to be explicit in words. The burden is on the commenter to disambiguate.
IMO, "Please x" is a plenty polite way to ask for x in English, and "I am not going to x" is not rude at all
I always fail to understand when people shy away from simplicity in communication.
How long until we replace `wontfix` tags with `I totally would but I already have a thing that day`