I've read through these 2 threads again, and I think Durin's initial post (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-July/077358.html) and George Herbert's reply (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-July/077966.html) are excellent summations of the issue.
(I'm a reductionist by nature, so, to synopsize even further...) This seems to be a fundamental disagreement between 2 philosophies: *The "open-content-first" folks (idealists), and the immediatists (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Immediatism) and *The "encyclopedia-first" folks (utilitarians?), and the eventualists (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Eventualism)
Does that sound about right?
Quiddity