And with distributed development, there needs to be accountability, arguably a greater standard of it. I, too, would rather err on the side of a conservative approach, especially since it pertains to the Linux kernel.
To add to dclowd9901's point -- for a full understanding of what can happen to a giant project if accountability is not strictly kept and logged, see the SCO case (and its related firestorm). Linus and many others went through a lot of crap and are understandably a bit strict about preventing that from happening again.
