I agree too, I read "bad vibes" and motor mount and thought that this thread was going to be completely different. Great post and great story.
And while everybody has their own managament style, ruling with an iron fist in subjects of opinion/popularity reeks of insecurity IMO. It's one thing to b**** and whine, accepting no delays in proyects, or be borderline unreasonable if that's what it takes to get work done, but there will be people at work who don't like you, get over it. And you can't take someones right to express their opinion freely, and if the employees have fear to express their opinion, the department/company is loosing out on a lot potential. Also, if people knew he had a temper problem, why not just ignore it? Or take the opportunity and turn it into something positive; the boss could have done a lot to make himself look good but instead just makes it look that the disgruntled employee was on to something. Way to go.