Eliezer_2012 is indeed quite fortunate to have been preceded by all those previous Eliezers who did those things.

Eliezer only got to be Eliezer_2012 by doing all those things. Now, maybe Eliezer_201209120 did wake up this morning, as every morning, and think, "how extraordinarily, astoundingly lucky I am to be me!", and there is some point to that thought -- but not one that is relevant to this conversation.

Then, like I implied, he should just admit to making a decision on the basis of his own personal preference (if indeed that's what's going on), instead of constructing a rationalization about the opinions of offline folks being somehow more important or "appropriately" filtered.

It is tautologically his preference. I see no reason to think he is being dishonest in his stated reasons for that preference.

(...) on the basis of his own personal preference (...)

I would replace preference with hypothesis of what constitutes the optimal rationality-refining community.

They are sensibly the same, but I find the latter to be a more useful reduction that is more open to being refined in turn.