To answer your question, the earlier forks addressed situations which were universally accepted to be problems if not flat-out emergencies.  The 'gavincoin' hard-fork is far from this.  As I mentioned above, I and I think it's safe to say that a fair number of others consider it a significant regression which will lead to the death of the system as something which exists in ways that are important to me.

Bitcoin always has and always will mean different things to different people.  I'm not joking when I say that I believe the hard-fork is a deliberate attack on the part of some people and a stepping-stone toward destroying Bitcoin by destroying fungibility (chiefly through {color}-listing.)

That said, I also don't doubt that a high percentage of people who want the increase in transaction rate are completely earnest in their belief that it is necessary and non-threatening.  But very few people really have the skills and foresight to do system analysis on a complex ecosystem such as Bitcoin which has a strong footprint in diverse fields.  Principally economics, power politics, and network engineering.

  - edits: slight syntax/spelling