Unfortunately, like you allude to, most people also saw his reaction simply to being a stolen theme, and don't appreciate that it was intended to be much more than that.

The network's introduction introduced Dustin's concept and site. If you ever visited his blog before that, it's clear he was building the site before. Part of the introduction was sharing a novel approach to the blogging workflow and get a glimpse of the CMS. If it's "just a theme," you'd imagine that people would steal some of the more interesting things, like his approach to editing, or build on it. Instead, people insisted on duplicating the theme -- some just to spite Dustin.

Dustin was explicit about his goals in the beginning - to create a great publishing/blogging network. If yoiu look at how it's panned out, people are making Svbtle their personal blogs and the theme is the differentiator. writers were willing to forego a complete branding of their website and demonstrated they were willing to accept this brand. When you're working to build a brand and key piece is plagiarized (and subsequently insulted by people who don't understand the work that goes behind it), the reaction is a bit more understandable.