Perhaps the whole thing was just to get a bunch of attention for their little IRC channel.  If they have an audience they can pretend their opinions actually count for something and they're not just having a little circle-jerk.  It's not like people are going to want to interact with them because they're decent human beings or anything, so they have to make a load of drama out of nothing to try and get some attention.  "Look at us, we're important decision makers, honest!  Come listen to our dogma and worship at the feet of the elite".



Ignore them and hopefully they'll go away.

Their argument has been backwards from the start anyway.  They're saying that Gavin wants to change the way Bitcoin works and that he needs to justify that change.  But in reality, Gavin is only making sure Bitcoin continues to work in the same way it works now and always has done.  It's the anti-fork crowd that need to justify forcing full blocks onto everyone and the only reason they can come up with is that it guarantees security for them and no one else matters.  If you want an open system that's available for anyone to use, you'll support the fork.  If you only want Bitcoin to benefit early adopters and risk driving everyone else away, you'll oppose the fork.