They were the darling of custom ROMs before Cyanogen Inc.

When they incorporated, a lot of people hoped it would help sponsor development (while others, suspecting what would happen, forked into OmniRom).

Unfortunately, once they incorporated, the company spokesman (McMaster) went against the whole original culture (they installed bloatware on their phones) and generally spoke without thinking (kill Google, etc.).

Now, they're seen as a weak wannabee Oracle.

As far as I know, the straw that broke the camel's back was CM inc breaking a device exclusivity contract which as one can imagine hurt revenue and anger investors. That coupled with some aggressive PR in years past lead to this.