Studies are supposed to be repeatable. But in practice a lot of research never gets repeated. I'm sure he must feel a little insulted to have his life's work called into question, even if the cause is other investigators who were fraudulent or incompetent, or even if the questions are arising only indirectly because of unrelated research that happens to use priming.

IANAS, but psychology is obviously not the hardest of the sciences. I think in other areas like e.g. chemistry and biology, it's more difficult to pass off methods and results that are not repeatable _if_ they are going to be foundational and used for lots of future research by others. If some other lab can't get the right results using your methods, I would think they will make some noise. They might first think they are themselves at fault, but they would probably make contact with others outside their lab and make it known, in some way, that these methods were not working for them. Whereas I can't see that as being as common in psychological research. It's too easy if some method is not working to just "make it work". ;)

Not at all ignorant. It is a given that a replication should be carried out by a disinterested party, one neither an advocate of, nor critical of, the original work.