My optimized miner didn't hurt XMR much (we could argue this, of course, but I didn't see too much yelling). I think the difference was that Christian was public about his in an inflammatory way that made people really *feel* the inequity. It's tough when you know you're not getting what someone else is. With most currencies, you might suspect, but you don't *know* that you're behind. Because once the coins are on the exchange, it's all about the buyers and sellers. Perception absolutely is important.
I was surprised how strong people feel aggrieved if they *think* they are treated inequity, here on this board.
I would say Christian don´t hurt the coin from his mining but from his honesty and inflammatory about his mining activity.
And this also only in the short run. (i hope so)
In the long run he forced the development of stratum and in the end a open source OpenGL miner for Nvidia and AMD.