People are totally entitled to be upset and to voice their displeasure. It is never justified to make personal attacks on a person, or to curse at them. That is juvenile and unacceptable behavior. There has to be a line between dissatisfied customer and internet troll. Being a dissatisfied customer is totally fine, being a hostile and insulting troll is not. Of course I'm still referring specifically to the trolls on twitter. I just wanted to clear up my statement. I'm not saying don't complain, I'm saying complain all you want, but behave like rational and civil advlts while complaining.
While I don't think Hines really deserves people to be going off on him like it's the opening scene of Full Metal Jacket, I don't think he, or Gstaff for that matter, are really handling things the best way possible. Occasionally saying "I have nothing to tell you" and then (in Pete's case) really acting annoyed/passive aggressive/snotty towards people who don't think that's a good enough response (which it isn't) isn't effective communication.
If they gave some sort of status report as to what's not running right on the PS3, i.e. bugs, glitches, lag, crashes, freezes, whatever or how many people thy actually have working on it (I suspect it's a small number, looking at how they've handled the PS3 in the past), I imagine people would be more understanding. But that's not what's happening. People expressed their displeasure in a respectful way, but nothing happened regarding it and now they're much more upset, and while their behavior isn't something I condone, I think by and large Bethesda's brought it on themselves.
When the only update we get about the state of this DLC is "I'm not saying anything to you," and the only solutions we get for bugs is either "Don't do that," or "Start the game over, thanks for playing," (Both of which are "solutions" Gstaff has suggested in the past) Bethesda's PR and communication is officially a bust.
Again, I don't think those people are going about things the right way, but neither is Bethesda. A lot of this ire could probably be taken care of if they actually bothered to relate to the public the state of things, rather than act indignant that people are beginning to doubt their competence regarding the PS3.