Since it isn't 1980 and I'm not making ASCII-art, I prefer proportional fonts even for coding. But seriously, I find that it makes code more readable because the eyes tend not to get caught in the rivers and lakes that easily form with fixed-width fonts. Also, we all want to get the most out of limited screen real-estate, but the only way to do that with fixed fonts is to squish even the widest characters beyond a reasonably readable point. I prefer MS Reference Sans Serif, which has clear distinctions between all the ambiguous chars (e.g., Il1 and 0O).

You've left off an important alternative, which is part of the OSS credo/manifesto/whatever: you can fix it yourself _or pay someone else to do so_. I'm betting the project has a PayPal button somewhere on it. If you and the 20 others who have reported this issue even threw just a few buck apiece at the project owners, it would go a long way towards prioritizing your issue. It'll also go a long way toward showing your material appreciation of what the project does for you, when it does work. Put your money where your pixels are.