I think it's more that it leads to brain drain. Be it by misinformation, by discouraging anyone who doesn't fit [demographic of leadership], or by simply not giving proper code reviews in the name of politeness. All 3 ways creep up and the code base suffers from lack of care, and/or lack of talent.
We can certainly debate how effective old methods were (and yes, I have no doubt Torvald's old behavior turned off many a talent) and how we can improve on them, but in a more general viewpoint we need to remember that many open source code bases are, or started as, volunteers providing their knowledge in their free time. It doesn't take much to make them walk to the next repo. Or not contribute to OS at all.
We can certainly debate how effective old methods were (and yes, I have no doubt Torvald's old behavior turned off many a talent) and how we can improve on them, but in a more general viewpoint we need to remember that many open source code bases are, or started as, volunteers providing their knowledge in their free time. It doesn't take much to make them walk to the next repo. Or not contribute to OS at all.