Yeah I agreed that this call-out seemed out of place. I wouldn't even categorize it as passive aggressive. I see it as attempting to give input as to what ought to be prioritized. The intent seems positive to me as long as it's not pushy.

Now, maybe the maintainer doesn't want this form of input, or prefers to have the input in the form of issue voting, etc. Overall though I don't see the action as inherently rude.

Then again I'm not a major project maintainer.