It kind of sounded to me like the author was pointing out that, though O'Reilly sucks, the editors (including the acquisitions editor) were good. The author didn't seem to get personal in a bad way.
Exactly, they were named to point out that they "both possessed integrity and practical minds."
Not true. The part where he contacts Tim O'Reilly directly, he names the name of "the publisher who replaced him", and said they lacked "integrity and good business sense".