> I would like to understand why some developers dislike including it, even when the reST syntax is provided.

This has something to do with the use of blurb/blurb-it. Both tools specifically say "single paragraph with simple ReST markup".

Further reading blurb's source code, it says the format of the news blurb should be as follows:

  * The BODY section should be a single paragraph of English text
    in ReST format.  It should not use the following ReST markup
    features:
      * section headers
      * comments
      * directives, citations, or footnotes
      * Any features that require significant line breaks,
        like lists, definition lists, quoted paragraphs, line blocks,
        literal code blocks, and tables.

Perhaps Larry has more context on why the news entry should be "simple"?