@elextr thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed reply - I was not expecting that much. I understand your position and I'm fine with it, considering that there are 2 simple workarounds (switch to a different font or change filetypes.common settings).
That said, for argument's sake, regardless of stats I would say that the number of people complaining is not equivalent to the actual number of affected ones. My point is that I'm running a fairly standard Ubuntu LTS setup which is arguably one of the most popular Linux distros out there, so your _Very unlucky few_ estimate is possibly quite larger than you seem to believe, even if only a dozen people have actually come here to tell you about it.
But anyway, this is your software and I respect your decision; I agree that the fix may be better applied in the Ubuntu package, but to be honest it's not worth my while to pursue this; I will use the workaround.
Thanks for Geany and your support.