Sometimes the whole mess reminds me of "Spy vs Spy" in Mad magazine.
That the entire code making process may be flawed by design is a topic for another day.
My own view? Well, rhetoric aside, those who publish codes have to change their business model. There already exist several publishers who make "high for the industry" profits publishing works that are in the public domain. These publishers realize that the profit lies in the added features: illustrations, colored text, commentaries, etc.
The NFPA has insisted upon a different model. If they could, they'd charge you every time you read it, or recited if from memory. So, you can expect their products to be as 'user unfriendly' as possible. They see us as the "enemy."
