Precisely.
As with previous issues on the site - whether it was something as serious as the revelation that Amir0x had been arrested over child porn or something as simple as the push from GAFers for a "remember Iwata" theming to the site when he died (having seen the board rightfully themed to publicly support the LGBT community, IIRC - can't check now, thanks to OT being unavailable to search) there is a pattern:
Evilore will remain strictly hands-off... until he isn't. When he does decide to get involved it is handled awkwardly, harshly and with as little explanation as possible, or with important details ignored, glossed over or simply denied.
I'm not surprised the Amir0x situation nearly broke the mod team, before this finally did for them. When the story broke, most of the discussion that cropped up - before being locked or deleted - was from users who were shocked and looking for answers. The initial response seemed fair - confirmation that it was actually Amir0x wasn't there, there were likely concerns about it being a malicious hoax etc. - so the initial locks weren't looked on too badly. That quickly soured as it became clear that all discussion on it was quickly being shut down even after it was apparent it really was Amir0x, and it was relatively late after the news when Evilore finally made a statement on the situation that many long-time GAFers felt - rightly, I think - skimmed over (or possibly misrepresented) the situation with Amir0x and promptly shut it all down again, with no further discussion (or mention) of the subject allowed.
Regardless of the truth of the situation between Evilore and Leupp, you can see the same pattern here - ignore it as long as possible, make the mods stomp hard on it and leave them to take the flak, then when that finally becomes untenable (spectacularly so, this time, as GAF basically collapsed as the mods made a mass exodus) step in, and make an unsatisfactory statement with no further discussion. The only small improvement in this situation has been that threads have been allowed to remain open, but I suspect that's a small sop to try and cool things off rather than a genuine change of heart, and it's arguably utterly undermined by the decision to close off OT and to ban "politics".
I don't see much learning or growth here, and that's incredibly disappointing to me. This has been a fantastic community, despite the ups and downs and some embarrassing moments (the internet caricature of GAF is uncomfortably accurate on occasion) and I think there was an opportunity here to move in a different direction that strengthened the site and showed that lessons were finally being learned.
The statement and the comments in the Waypoint interview make that seem incredibly unlikely. Very sad.