I think Uli is an excellent *developer*. I think he was not an excellent *maintainer*, because the job of a maintainer is not just to say no to everyone but also to nurture a development community so you don't have to do all the work yourself. This he manifestly failed to do. (The rate of bugfixing suggests that he didn't even keep up with the rate of bug reports, which is unsurprising as there is only one of him.)