I also like the guy, and think he has room in the project...but I did not appreciate him deceiving people to get sysop,
I did not appreciate him using policy holes to get sysop in spite of obvious opposition,
and I did not appreaciate in the least that he tried to apply pressure on me to be made sysop on meta.
That seriously decreased the level of friendly feeling I could have toward him. Fortunately, there was a high level initially :-) so some of it is still there :-)I am also seriously concerned by his last requests, being a sysop on wikibooks, being a steward and suggestion that any sysop on one wiki should be sysop anywhere.I also am concerned that he got all this power, not because people trusted and supported him, but essentially thanks to rules.I think a project like wikipedia should be flexible, and driven by people decisions and collective feeling. Not by rules applied blindly.When someone is made sysop, thanks to rules, against community wishes, I think the system is seriously broken and rules should be changed.There should be a way to have decisions back in the hand of people, rather than in the words of rules.
Also, there is a weird situation where basically, anyone made sysop one day will stay sysop forever, except if he makes a horrible infringment (even in this case...). So, someone made sysop without trust can stay a sysop even though people do not trust him. Is that good ? Why is it a permanent status ? Should it be unrevocable ?ant