What you've missed is the overarching issue here, though.
Mozilla will strip out useful functionality from Firefox (like the status bar, for example), and anyone desiring such functionality is told to install some extension to restore the now-missing functionality.
If such an attitude is acceptable when it comes to functionality that Firefox users find useful, then it is just as acceptable when it comes to functionality that Mozilla may find useful.
Mozilla should offer this as an optional extension. If users wish to financially support Mozilla in this way, then they are free to install it and provide such financial support. Otherwise, Firefox users aren't subjected to financing Mozilla in a way that may not be considered acceptable.
i would actually like if firefox just came out of the box with a set of extensions enabled that mozilla chooses.
ie everything would be an extension (or in their words, addon).
That would ensure everything stays compatible and that you can make your browser look exactly the way you want (it would also shut you up! :p)
That being said having looked and sometimes contributed to the gecko source code this is not something that is easily doable.
Til then im actually quite happy with their choices. i uninstalled my status bar addon eventually. Its better without it. I even like the new FF UI. Sure theres a few things that could be better, but overral i find most of the complains to be because of the "i dont want any change, better or not" attitude (even i have a little bit of that attitude).
What you've missed is the overarching issue here, though.
Mozilla will strip out useful functionality from Firefox (like the status bar, for example), and anyone desiring such functionality is told to install some extension to restore the now-missing functionality.
If such an attitude is acceptable when it comes to functionality that Firefox users find useful, then it is just as acceptable when it comes to functionality that Mozilla may find useful.
Mozilla should offer this as an optional extension. If users wish to financially support Mozilla in this way, then they are free to install it and provide such financial support. Otherwise, Firefox users aren't subjected to financing Mozilla in a way that may not be considered acceptable.