I think that's an unfortunate side-effect of pretty much any long-standing community Tex. In almost every facet of life... from middle school on up you have various clique's that will vehemently stick to their topic/subject of choice and refuse to let go.

Everyone has a different push point.. while 2 people can operate and agree perfectly fine on one subject - they can be on opposite ends of the other.. and it can get defensive. As we grow.. it doesn't surprise me that we'll be seeing more and more of this.