I understand where you’re coming from. The reality is that neither I or James have had the time to properly support Retort for some time. You’ll notice that the last commit on the repository is over a year ago (by me on 21 July 2021). It’s great that the plugin has continued to work this long and it is a testament to the quality of the work James put into building it.
When I say I don’t have the time, believe me, I wish I did! I feel sad every time I have to make one of these decisions (like with the Landing Pages Plugin). I didn’t build Retort, but I have invested time in it. When you decide to retire something, it’s like accepting that something you’ve created or loved, and spent many hours, days and weeks of your life with, must die. I know it was a tough decision for James to make when he felt he had to move on to other things.
By contrast, the Reactions Plugin is being maintained by Discourse.org, an organisation of over 60 people, on an active basis. It’s in use on a number of the servers used by Discourse.org’s clients. Yes, it doesn’t have the same features as Retort yet, but I would urge you to pursue that feature development as an avenue. Perhaps you could convince someone like me, or another member of Pavilion, to PR a missing feature into the plugin. That would be a smart avenue to achieve your long term goals here.