Also I suspect that there's no real teeth in that angry email.

If the big boss is frustrated by the UX, they might send an angry email or even yell at you in person. If your division doesn't meet its sales projection for the quarter, you might get fired.

If BillG had wanted a company that made good user experiences, he'd have hired (and fired) for that. Sending a pissy email is what you do when you're annoyed but don't actually care enough to do anything about it.