RE: debating ideas rather than people: I've tried very hard to do that.
I said last year when I reluctantly agreed to function as the lead core bitcoin developer that I have zero experience leading open source projects. But I try to do my due-diligence and learn from the experience of other successful projects.
The "aha" moment for me yesterday is the point in the video that I linked to, where the advice is to evaluate whether or not somebody causing issues for a project (whether intentional or not) is a net positive or negative to the project, and if they're "more trouble than they're worth" get them out of the project.
This isn't about BIP 16 versus BIP 17, this is about one person draining the rest of the development team with nagging, idealogical rigidity, and holy wars against "impure" ideas.
I try very hard to consider that maybe I'm wrong, but I think the evidence is clear.
You might also argue that the subversion people take the wrong approach, in which case please send me a link to some other open source project that has dealt with the issue in a different/better way.
I thought carefully about where to start this, and decided I might as well start it in the most public bitcoin discussion forum, because I think if I started it anywhere else it would eventually just appear here as "There's a Secret Conspiracy Started By Gavin To Oust A Valued Developer!"