I understand questioning Mike's conduct in all of this. But where exactly do you get off implicating Dave?
There's a long history of angry and irrational customers attacking retail representatives under some misapplied "customer is always right" ethos. You even imply that Dave was doing this. That was hardly the case. Dave rightfully wanted an explanation for why new customers were being lured with discounts at the expense of preordering customers who were still being kept in the dark. I don't know if Paul had any connection to this marketing decision but he did represent it (and the frustration was directed at this marketing and NOT personally fueled or disrespectful), and he did take it upon himself to deliver a response regarding it. This response was just ridiculous, not only telling Dave that he was not entitled to the discount (without any reasonable explanation) but going further to personally insult him, telling him to "put his big boy hat on." Paul's infractions went far beyond the standard of poor customer communication and atrocious spelling/grammar and were not the least bit instigated nor justified. Dave's 1000 word diatribe only came following this and it was, while angry, pretty dead on.
And I don't see why he shouldn't have assumed PA's or Kotaku's support (never mind the fact that Kotaku DID support him); it's not an awful lot different from expecting a local newspaper to support an expose of a scandal. The press does tend to function as an outlet for representing the common person from public injustice. No one here was the "cop" nor the "sentencing judge"; these sites served to expose what happened. Any consequences that followed from there are fully natural. Paul has been pleading repeatedly that he had a perfect record with thousands of customers until this one isolated incident. But I really doubt that he was a model of good customer relations up until now. This expose was probably long overdue. I really don't understand your argument that these sites were "contemptible." I'm also puzzled as to how you can call internet sites out as improperly judgmental in the content of a highly critical editorial piece. A piece whose exact purpose and function isn't entirely clear to me.
And if you really want to call out anyone as partaking in opportunistic bullying it's Kotaku. Penny Arcade did little more than paste the exchange verbatim, while Kotaku took it upon themselves to dig up dirt on Paul. While this article may eventually include Kotaku among the guilty parties list (but with much less emphasis than Dave, Paul, or Mike) it's all rendered hypocritical by an opening paragraph that does nothing but reinforce it, complete with NEW dirt on Paul. Shame on you Owen Good.