The Gravatar decision, in defense of Core, is likely not something they'd do today, but being as it is there now, they aren't going to remove it. Especially when no local solution has been implemented.

So, someone has to lead the effort to put in a local implementation. We can talk about it, but someone needs to spearhead it. The ticket has been open for a long time now.

Once there is an implementation, local should trump gravatar if a local avatar is set and we move from there.