In the past he made decisions that most involved users disagreed with. You know how it is on the internet, there are many disagreeable people, and he would ban or drive away some of them (such as /u/bobbobbybob) basically for being too antagonistic i.e. for their tone. Musky, who we all love, got banned for 'teetering on the edge' regarding pornographic content, as if he was looking for loopholes in the rules. In reality it's just his character and he's our friend. We're lucky he felt comfortable posting under an alt name, but others will actually leave. And then there are users of whom not everyone exactly knows why they got banned, such as /u/diogenesjunior. Actually, it looks like he deleted his account, but I remember a ban being involved (same with /u/bobbobbybob). It was way too meddlesome an approach for a small community which disrupted friendships we were forming. It's almost comparable to communist-style disappearances.

We pressured m7 to take a different approach and he took a step back from the website entirely in the aftermath, which made it acceptable, but your point stands: there's no growth this way.