They can do both, and if their stance is at all ideologically motivated, then it is necessary to focus on more than just the low hanging fruit of doing reviews.
The free software movement is more than just the free software existing. It is also congruent to the laws that permit it and extending rights
Right to repair is about more than simply fixing things. It’s about going after companies and lobbying to get actual rights enshrined into law.
Yes, but that is always possible with most protocols, including imap.
Take a look a FUSE and you will see all the creative things people have done with filesystems. Or DNS, lots of fun things have been done with that also.