Another story may be because he may not be promotable to such position because of mentioned "prickly" behavior, which may or may be not just engineering honesty and straightforward approach in contrast to bs(sugarcoating, ass kissing, exaggregating, sweeping dirt under carpet, etc) culture established in many companies.
Very much the high performer type who SHOULD NOT 'progress' to management or supervisor or ... reviewer of any sort.
He was professional, but "prickly". I found the keys to get along with him but a lot of folks didn't have the patience.