The documentation will never itself be used as a discussion platform. But it is collaborative already. The documentation is hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/xenforo-ltd/docs, can be edited, or issues discussed via the Issues section of the repo.
I think View is a sensible default in the context of the output that is generated. If you anticipate that it may be extended then, yes, it should hint AbstractReply on return.
You have a "Test image proxy" tool in your admin control panel. That reveals the issue:
To have them display correctly on your own site you can simply add jones.org as a bypass domain in the imageProxy options.
The current major version of XenForo is 2.3. We're working towards XenForo 2.4. XenForo 3.0 is in development.
The latest release is 2.3.9.
There is currently no release date published for XenForo 3.0.
I think we'll just have to agree to disagree there.
XenForo has evolved a lot over the years to accommodate different types of content and it will continue to do so, with improvements happening as needed. Many very large successful websites use XenForo for their entire front end, including...