Let me just say this: When I was getting banned from DS for being a bastard to Synner and AH (I regret nothing I said to them. The only thing I do regret is a comment about Steve Kenson) In spite of all of that, Rob and Synner still had the principles to read and consider the seven-page proposal I sent to Rob (and then Synner took over). I don't know what would have happened if it was accepted since the book it was for never came to be, but I did it because it was important enough to me that I wanted to see the game line improved and that literally is the only way that can be achieved. When Critias prodded me on to propose something for Spy Games, my secondary motivation after wanting to do espionage in SR material was entirely hatred-based.
I had a ten-minute conversation with Jeff Parker that was mostly based around my writing for Shadowrun last month after he had been on a panel discussing legacy characters and projects. Just the two of us in the hall talking about him getting a stern call from John Byrne for something in X-Men First Class and how my first contribution to the discussion group was stolen and posted across that web by ... people. People have been doing this for years before I got my shot, and others will come after I'm gone. In the meanwhile, my job is to make what I write as awesome as possible for the customer (and useful in my case since it's RPG supplements). In my case that means that for a given group of gamers my product has to serve as a utility upon which they can build as much or as little of their world upon. I'm providing the electricity. You can run whatever you want or rewire your house for all I care as long as you get something of value for those kilowatts I'm pumping in.
I hate, hate, HATE the Tree of Liberty subchapter in System Failure with a burning passion. Six years later and if I didn't before I now definitely have to put up with that ... material. But I also developed, co-wrote, and edited a fucking novel from the year and a half-long campaign I ran based on that material. At no point did my raking Synner, Jong-Won Kim and God and everyone else over the coals did that happen. It happened when I realized, "Wait a second. I can do something with this without retconning or breaking anything. Hey, Critias and co. Want to play a game?" Six years later those 1,800 words still occupy a far disproportionate amount of time and mindspace than one would reasonably expect.
I'm the last person on Earth who would or is allowed to tell people not to bitch. But what has angered me reading this thread is the disappointment in how ... lacking ... criticism is. On another board there is a bitching thread, and that is what I do. I will just fire off a missive about how I have an emotional other non-legitimate (to myself) reason for hating or being pissed off about something. I don't even try to acknowledge people who try to argue about them because they are by their nature just random, stupid bitching. But that's separate from me saying Identity Crisis is the worst comic book I've ever read because it fails at every level to accomplish whatever it was supposed to—beginning and ending with being a terrible mystery. I was rude and vulgar as beyond tolerance on DS, but I tried to at least have a valid criticism of mechanics, logic, continuity, or fact.