Considering that the number of patches submitted was quite limited I don't think the original research paper would qualify as a DoS attack. The workload imposed by the original research appears to have been negligible compared to the kernel effort as a whole, no more than any drive by patch submission might result in. So no, I wouldn't personally view that as harmful.
As to the backdated review now being undertaken, as far as I'm concerned that decision is squarely on the maintainers. (Honestly it comes across as an emotional outburst to me.)
