Hello,
I have a lot of respect for Joomla, and it is my main CMS for almost all of my Web projects. But I agree that the JED is in need of some improvement. Besides the ridiculous banning of HikaShop, they also seem to be biased in how they accept or reject reviews.
I try not to write negative reviews, and usually give the benefit of the doubt to developers! However, there were two extensions that to me had real problems. One of them was the biggest e-commerce extension in the JED. My review was removed for strange reasons (something about how I should not be commenting on bugs). When I looked at other extensions, they were accepted even though the reviewers made the same exact points, just about different extensions. I had the same situation for the biggest gallery extension. So it seems they allow negative reviews of certain extensions more than others. This kind of bias makes some extensions look better than they really are, and makes others look worse than they really are.
if the JED keeps this up, it will lose all credibility.
As I said, Joomla is crucial to me, and I support it fully. However, the managers of the JED should look at how MODx does its extension directory. I only use MODx for a small number of projects, but the Jommla JED could learn a lesson from MODx. Developers have far greater freedom in MODx, and MODx has a terrific link right inside the CMS control panel CMS to all registered extensions in the directory library, which makes installation so easy. I don't want to get into a "Joomla vs other CMS" discussion, but when there is a lesson to be learned I think it's helpful to point it out.
I plan to use HikaShop professional on some new sites soon.
Thanks,
Matthew