I would characterize it differently
That's your prerogative.
....given the thread started with:
"What I think 5E is lacking the most at this point in time are two things:
....
And *then* said, "What I would LOVE to see is one or two official hardcovers that remedies this."
So, yeah, totally about personal preference. He's a fan of certain kinds of game elements.
And didn't have any "plus thread" rules. and there wasn't any support for it, and no one else really knows what + threads are.
Yes, as I've already noted and critiqued. His approach was flawed, we all know that.
and the issue is whether or not a person, by starting a thread, gets to control/police it or not.
That issue has already been answered. He gets to make polite requests that folks stick by his rules. If he becomes a jerk about it, he's apt to not like the results. While we aren't going to hammer on people to stick by his rules, being contrarian to a jerkish level isn't allowed on this site in general, so folks strongly opposing the thread are also apt to not be happy with the results.
You are making this more complicated than it needs to be, as we see next....
I know that I, for example, start my regular "survivor threads" that depend on the community doing the right thing- if people wanted to screw with those, it would be pretty easy to do so.
And they don't, right? You ask folks to take those threads a certain way, and they generally do! While he was clumsy about it, the concept here is no different - be nice to your fellow EN Worlder's when they ask for a thread to go a certain way. Your Survivor threads are a fine example that extra moderation rules or outright software feature support should not be unnecessary.