It's always been extremely funny to me how arguments like this and from the curl author go. "Yes, I had to change curl away from strictly accepting two slashes, for web compatibility. But `while(slash) { advance_parser() }`? That's completely unreasonable! `while(slash && ++i <= 3)` is so much better, and works almost as well!" Ok, whatever...
I don't think there's anything new and interesting in that FAQ. It describes what they mean by a Living Standard, but it doesn't mean they're not running a treadmill operation.
They seem to be making reference to things like the RFC system, but those get updated too.
As for your claim about living standards, I'd encourage you to read https://whatwg.org/faq#living-standard