Elitism doesn't need to carry any sort of value judgment. You don't allow homeless people in your house, do you? That makes you elitist for a slightly broader definition -- you share the company of employed/housed people only. What else do you call a policy of only allowing hand-chosen authors to use a platform you've publicly touted? Selective, I suppose.
There's also the matter of Dustin Curtis' negative reaction to the creation of WP themes and other Svbtle lookalikes, which many people felt was undue/misplaced.
Not sure how this could be interpreted in any other way whatsoever.
This is unfair, and lacks imagination.
CEO X can run a company with an "elitist" strategy or not. And he can be critiqued for that strategy, or not. It is a giant leap (of bad logic) to jump to personal conclusions about CEO X based on his strategy. You are making that poor leap. The poster was trying to not due this, to his credit.
To get into the linguistic nitty-gritty, perhaps he could have said "elitist strategy". But the point was that Dustin's execution, and the decisions behind it, were based on the marketability of exclusion. The point wasn't that Dustin thinks he is better than others and therefore should be judged negatively.
> I wasn't attacking Dustin Curtis, I don't know him, I know of him and I have no problem with him whatsoever
Not sure how this could be interpreted in any other way whatsoever. Your other points are very fair.