I feel like you put too much stock in his early day 1 posts, which were just so-and-so run-of-the-mill reactions and standard opening stuff, imo. His most sincere moment was without a doubt imo when he was in setup designer mode talking to martin, and you can see the tonal shift.
Many of his early reads (and later reads, frankly) leaned towards hitting players for play that was incorrect rather than particularly scummy. I feel like my post 611 gives a good sense of what I mean, even if matt actually posted that later.