He was not "Team Lead" of 50 people. A Team Lead is for a group of 4-6 people usually. Perhaps 8. So he was just one of many.How big do you think Blizzard was in the early 00s? The original WoW was developed by 50 people. Kern was a producer on not just one of the greatest RTS games ever made, but also the greatest ARPG.
Blizzard obviously valued his contributions to those games, so much so they made him a team lead on a project developed by 50 people, which went on to be the greatest MMO ever made.
I'd rather the grieving mother be dropped. The whole "You killed my child...lets fuck" never sat right with me.
I'm not saying he did not contribute to WoW. Any programmer where I work contribute to what we make, but that does not make them anything special. Maybe he even contributed a special idea - great. One flash of "brilliance" does not make him special either.
Also he was not a producer. A producer is *vastly* different from an associate producer.