> Kitty is the epitome of NIH.

Sorry to be that guy, but what is a "NIH"? All I know is the https://www.nih.gov/ :)

My apologies — I dislike seeing unexplained acronyms myself. As detaro answered before me, it's ‘not invented here’, the tendency to reject existing solutions for a sense of control.

Check out xterm author comments about the history of MOK: some people tried to present his works as theirs.