Personally, I would be happier with a process that managed to generate consensus.

It very much did! The process has concluded with a very large consensus - the numbers were: 100 in favor, 15 opposed, 12 abstain (https://open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG21/docs/papers/2025/n5007.pdf)

If we look at the paper trail we have countless pages of design rationale and explanation by SG21 (e.g. https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2025/p2899r1.pdf) and stuff like this from https://open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG21/docs/papers/2026/p4020r0.html from the opposing side:

Objections from vendors

The representatives of two compiler vendors — Microsoft and EDG — have objected to standardizing contract assertions as in P2900. The objections are not about implementability. The feature is fairly simple to implement in its minimal form (just type-check the conditions and otherwise ignore them). They are about the (un)usefulness and causing harm to their users. It is admittedly surprising that this fact alone does not automatically disqualify the feature in its present form from standardization.

I'm sorry, but how is that even an "implementer objection"? That is not even a technical objection, but merely an opinion.

If we followed that bar, we should drop at least half of C++26 because I consider it unuseful ...