While this was about miners, I wasn't keen to weigh in since I never used p2Pool and I haven't mined for ages.

But if you're going to judge development by charisma, let me provide some anecdotal evidence: Con has always been polite to me and taken the time to explain things I didn't understand. OTOH Luke-Jr has been rude and hostile to my questions (which started out respectful and polite, and became less so the more responses I got from him).

I'm sure there are hostile developers. Con isn't one of them.