I think this is a fair criticism, and I agree that if my boss publicly called me out and insulted me, I'd be pretty discouraged. I might not have made my point very well, but I certainly didn't mean to imply that being outright caustic was ok, either. I only meant to say that it's still possible offend and arrive at the wrong decision by employing NVC.
Nothing about respecting teammates and their emotions says you have to accept their pull request.