Consider what would have happened had Yudkowsky not shown exceptional receptivity to this post: he would have blatantly proven his critics right.

After turning this statement around in my head for a while I'm less certain than I was that I understand its thrust. But assuming you mean those critics pertinent to lukeprog's post, i.e. those claiming LW embodies a cult of personality centered around Eliezer -- well, no. Eliezer's reaction is in fact almost completely orthogonal to that question.

If you receive informed criticism regarding a project you're heavily involved in, and you react angrily to it, that shows nothing more or less than that you handle criticism poorly. If the community around you locks ranks against your critics, either following your example or (especially) preemptively, then you have evidence of a cult of personality.

That's not what happened here, though. Eliezer was fairly gracious, as was the rest of the community. Now, that is not by itself behavior typically associated with personality cults, but before we start patting ourselves on the back it's worth remembering that certain details of timing and form could still point back in the other direction. I'm pretty sick of the cult question myself, but if you're bound and determined to apply this exchange to it, that's the place you should be looking.