It doesn't sound like the Hugo developer (bep) "stubbornly refuses" to fix that issue. It's on the roadmap, after all. Rather, it sounds like it's simply not a high priority task, and other things have taken up his time. It is a free product, after all.
It's on the roadmap since 8 years. But the problem I have with this free kind of software is that they claim on their website " The world's fastest framework for websites". That generates some expectations. They don't claim "the world's slowest hobby project, written by people in their spare time for no money." So it shouldn't be a surprise that people get disappointed, if important features are missing from "the world's fastest framework".
