Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does this distinction matter? Gnome on X works perfectly fine, Gnome on Wayland does not. Why does it matter it to state that Wayland is a protocol, not the implementation?
Because if what's bothering you is the implementation and not the protocol, you should be talking about fixing the implementation instead of diverting attention to the protocol? I might not understand your question here.
For a modern example of this in action, see Bluetooth and the madhouse of device 'quirks' you have to settle with day-to-day, since each device has subtly protocol-breaking opinions on how to implement it.