As far as I'm concerned, Wikipedia still needs stubs to grow, precisely in areas where it is currently weak.
I agree. The idea that stubs are bad is silly. WP isn't, and probably will never be, a finished work.
Absolutely no one here appears to be suggesting that stubs are bad. If we had any deletionists at all who were as hardline as Anthony, Mark Richards or Mr. Knight, then that's probably what they would argue.
I haven't seen the cases at hand, but knowing recent events, I'd guess that they were probably substubs. And that's where they don't help Wikipedia, because they contribute precisely nothing (and diminish our credibility, by showing us to prefer quantity over quality).
-- ambi