"He's not being judged on the merits of his work, but rather on a personal level."To be honest IMHO he made it about himself. By being self-aggrandizing in the original post he distracted from the real usability issues that he found with AA.com and instead made it a vitriolic rant devoid of civility or understanding. Yes, this thread is very much about "Dustin is an ass", and rightfully so - the first blog post is long over, and now we get to address the aftermath of Dustin's tactlessness. It's entirely valid to, at this point, point out how the lack of civility and the hostile tone contributed to solving no problems at all - it's a lesson we can all take home.
"I guess that makes them more ignorant, which, by people's argument here, should mean they are in a lesser place to express their disappointment."
But that's not what Dustin said. As a designer he claimed that AA could do a complete make-over with a trivial amount of effort, and that the fact that it hasn't been done already points to massive incompetence within the company. He then called for the mass firing of everyone responsible for the website within AA.
It's one thing to claim (whether as designer or user) that AA's website sucks, and that there are specific problems with it, etc etc. It's quite another to claim (as a professional designer) that this means incompetence, or that doing it right is trivially easy, or that your redesign has covered all the main bases. The former is legitimate complaint or criticism, the latter is arrogant and severely lacking in perspective.
As a user you don't need to understand why products are the way they are. As a designer, though, you better damn well understand it.
"People here are just taking cheap shots based on their belief that because Dustin hasn't worked at a big company, his opinion and demand for a better product are invalid."
I ripped into Dustin pretty hard when his redesign was first posted here - I didn't know his age nor his experience in the industry at the time. I don't get the feeling that if he was a scarred veteran of the industry that he'd get it any easier. Arrogant, smug bullshit is arrogant, smug bullshit no matter how old or experienced you are.