The point was that it was a very specific portion of the fans, not the actual works, that cause so many people to have such negative views about all things Whedon. It's not like it's one or two people that feel that way, either, so you can't really call said people outliers or anything else.
It really is similar to Apple and its fanboys. The people you just want to punch in the face not because they're using an Apple product, but because they're just so damn annoying, self-righteous and holier-than-thou about said products.
I don't like Buffy and I found Firefly absolutely silly despite the backpeddling they tried to to fix it (ie, the "hundreds of worlds" in a single solar system, or a backwater planet so poor they have to rely on wind power for the most basic of things yet still have a holographic forcefield window in the tavern). But it's easy enough to just not watch them and instead focus on other shows and franchises that I do enjoy.
Avoiding the above-mentioned type of fanboys, though? Not quite so easy. Hence indifference slowly mutating into seething hatred.