Does Drupal get hurt even further? Or does Drupal look like a project with a strong community that stands up to perceived errors of its leadership by demanding better justifications? FWIW, I think many other communities would have imploded by now, and at least the posts that have been linked here have been surprisingly civil.
I might agree with you if it were a call to resign or similar, but they aim at getting (to them very relevant) information that has been demanded in public (and I have to assume in private as well) before, without result, not necessarily at a reversal of the decision.
Some of the signatories call for his resignation.
The problem here is that the producers of drupal are a much smaller set of people than the consumers of something like drupal. It's the consumers that will have to decide whether they want to base their next project on Drupal or not and all this infighting is giving of an aura of extreme instability. So as a result the drupal project as a whole will suffer because some fraction of that audience will decide to move on from Drupal.
Buytaert is wrong, there is really no doubt about that. But if you want to make a point you simply send the letter to its intended recipient and follow up on the threat to leave if you are ignored or unhappy with the outcome.
If you want to increase the spectacle you do so publicly, with the direct result that Drupal gets hurt even further in the process no matter what the outcome will be.