I know. I think my answer was simplistic. I said I'd never heard of Ben, but I was actually primed by reading this article right before stumbling upon the debacle:
http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/18/can-this-startup-steal-nod...Having only ever had positive experiences with Isaacs in non-node-core capacities, I suppose I immediately jumped on "their side". So I guess I came to the conversation on biased terms.
Could it be that he's just not someone to be a project lead? Someone can be a prolific contributor (and a good person -- not demonizing him), but still not be the right folks to lead a project, right?