A more direct approach might be: "no patches which frobnicate a beezlebib will be accepted".

There are many FOSS projects that don't use Linus's style and do work well. What's so special about Linux?

I would say the size (in terms of SLOC count), scope (everything from TVs to supercomputers), lack of a equivalent substitute (MySQL or Postgres? Apache or Nginx? Linux or... BSD?), importance of correctness (its the kernel, stupid), and commercial involvement (Google, Oracle, etc.) make it very different from most FOSS projects. Mostly I'd say the size, complexity and very low tolerance of bugs.

I have no idea if Linus's attitude is helpful or not. I tend to think he could do better with more direct, polite approaches like the above, but I don't hold that belief very strongly.