As for the frustration the author feels, their behavior on HN hasn't been particularly constructive. The majority of their sparse activity has been primarily repeatedly posting the same self-promotional content from three different domains.
https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=SamPutnam
From this piece:
> "I only speak for myself, but I do believe that Hacker News is for many the BATNA of programming communities and not one I can afford to leave."
They haven't contributing much to HN: while they may find HN valuable, they're not doing much to participate in a way that many HN members would appreciate. They specifically mention 'patio11, and rightly so. Besides posting a slew of valuable content on his blog, he's also been a valuable, active member of the HN community. That's a significant difference between 'patio11 and 'SamPutnam. A thoughtful post on the differences between consulting and programming is one thing, and something that I think would likely would be well-received: an outsider's rant on what's wrong with HN comes off poorly.
I second 'minimaxir's comment upthread, and encourage 'SamPutnam to spend more time participating in HN to better understand what works and what doesn't within it. HN is far from perfect, but I think it's got a lot going for it and the best way to make a difference is by helping make HN the place you want it to be through one's participation.
BTW, am I alone in finding prose formatted that way (center-justified with unnatural extra whitespace) particularly awkward to read?