No offense, truly, if this player was a friend, but this seems like an absolutely brutal, small-minded jerk move on their part. I don't know if I'd be able to play anything with that person after that. Did they really think their PC's daily rate was the point of the game? Yeesh.
Eh, not really a friend so much as an acquaintance I gamed with on occasion. It wasn't long before he moved and I haven't hard from him in 15-16 years at this point.
But I feel like all of the stuff you're describing is in a similar vein, which I fully understand--the players just not buying in. I've noticed that in some newer games the designers explicitly recommend sitting down with players during session zero, or before, and discussing the tone, the concept, maybe the themes. I'm such a trad gamer that I never even considered doing that--I've barely even done session zeros of any kind.
I started doing session zeroes a few years ago specifically to make sure we were all aboard in terms of what we expected from the campaign. I've had a few campaigns spoiled because we weren't all on the same page so far as tone and what type of characters were appropriate. Case in point...
GURPS: I used GURPS to run a game of Delta Green. In DG, players are government agents involved in an illegal conspiracy to cover up supernatural/mythos events. I explained to the players that the game was "realistic" in that their characters were normal humans. Their characters were built with more points than your average person, but even an average beat cop could put a bullet in their asses killing them. GURPS is a point buy system and being generic it allows for a lot of oddities. I don't remember all the baloney one player tried to pull, but I do remember he tried buying the Strength in his arms to 16 because it saved points and allowed him to do good melee damage. I told him he couldn't do that or purchase any of the psychic powers he wanted.
In one scene, the PCs were exploring the house of a suspect when they decided to head into the basement. One player character pulled out his pistol and the other, Mr. Arm Guy, who was an FBI agent, pulled out his bolas.
Me: Bolas?
Player: Yeah.
Me: Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Player: What?
Me: You're serious?
Player: Yeah.
Me: Why would a special agent of the FBI be armed with bolas? You've got access to pretty much any weapons that might theoretically be confiscated by federal officers. Why bolas?
Player: I just thought it'd be fun and unique.
Me: How do you plan on swinging that thing in a basement? How do you even walk around with it concealed?
Player: Why don't you just play my character?
That campaign even came to an end because we lost our venue.