4. Making BUFFERS default behavior for EXPLAIN ANALYZE was raised several times, for example https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/CANNMO++=LrJ4upoeydZhbmpd_ZgZjrTLueKSrivn6xmb=yFwQw@mail.gmail.com (2021) – and my understanding that it was received great support and it discussed in detail why it's useful, but then several attempts to implement it were not accomplished because of tech difficulties (as I remember, problem with broken tests and how to fix that).
The main premise here is that explain should include buffers by default, and to do so we are willing to inconvenience testers who do not want buffer data in their test plans to have to modify their tests to explicitly exclude buffers. We'll have to eat our own dog food here and go and add "buffers off" throughout our code base to make this happen. I personally feel that we should accept a patch that does so. The benefits to the many outweigh the one-time inconveniencing of the few. Especially if limited to explain analyze.
If the desire is to make the current keyword VERBOSE behave like the proposed ALL keyword then one must first get a version of ALL accepted, then argue for repurposing VERBOSE instead of adding the new keyword. But at this point I really do not see extending verbose to mean more than "add more comments and context labels". Verbose has never meant to include everything and getting buy-in to change that seems highly unlikely.
In short, neither change is deemed unwanted, and indeed has desire. It's a matter of learning from the previous attempt to increase the odds of getting something committed.
I wouldn't advise expending effort or political capital on the parentheses topic at this point.
