But of course I'm several hundred emails behind, in Wikipedia alone, not to mention all my other email.

Here's a thought: if I were to engage in a policy of de-sysop'ing (what a word!) for more or less routine quarrels between sysops, then rather than learning to live together, we'd have a strong incentive to quarrel even more. Rather than seeking to find a way to harmonize our different points of views, we'd have an incentive to make the counterparty look as bad as possible.

Compare: "Hey, SoAndSo, I wanted to leave a note for you about what you did on thus-and-such a page. I disagreed with what you did there, and here's why. Even though we disagree, I hope you can find a way to meet me halfway on this."

Versus: "I nominate that SoAndSo be de-sysop'ed, and here's why: blah blah blah. And some other bad stuff about him. And a list of links to jerky things he's done."

--Jimbo