Maybe so, but my interpretation is that there's personal opposition to change and improvement from people like Linus or TGLX or other greybeards. At least in the linux kernel world. The contribution by email is an antiquated approach and needs to go.
Now, knowing the HN crowd this comment will become grey in 3... 2... 1...
Oh, sorry, you actually need to figure out the maintainers, so you can send it directly to them too to get it reviewed faster, so yeah a call to `./scripts/get_maintainer.pl -f <files>` ok, now it got impossible for the modern dev – cannot expect those are able to actually understand basic systems.
Then reply to the review replies you get, if there's still anything to change, how would gerrit making that easier in any way?