It's very hard to accept criticism; very hard. But OP's view is the mature, thoughtful way to go about it. Some people are going to be mad-as-hell, and they just will be. The analysis and advice is good. The initial response from the founder wasn't great and because we all like rooting for the underdog, there was a pile-on. Bad on us.

But, just to see how accepting criticism works, it wasn't Dostoevsky who had that quote about happy families, it was Tolstoy. :-)