dang is here as a moderator precisely "on behalf of the community." As in, he acts to facilitate productive discussion. You might disagree with his decision here, but I can't see any way in which he has different goals than you would want him to. At worst, he has made a mistake, and the backlash from it will make him not do it again. (At best, he is being "the hero we need" by attempting to stop a flamewar argument before it starts, even if that means taking the heat that that flamewar would have spawned entirely himself.)
My point was that it doesn't, any more than a waiter asking after your mother's health when she's just died implies the restaurant is on a decline. That's not insensitive (therefore implying the restaurant is now hiring insensitive people); it's just a faux pas (therefore implying the restaurant is hiring regular ol' fallible humans.) The change to the article title here, likewise, was not an abuse; it was just an overly-hasty application of the regular HN guidelines—the thing dang does literally all day without anyone noticing when he's doing it well, done with slightly less care than usual.
dang is a regular person; regular people realize when they do things other people don't like, and then stop doing those things. Systems composed of regular people (i.e. not tyrants and sycophants) self-correct, rather than entering downward spirals. Not everything presages the end of an era. Most things, where conscientious people are involved, are just hiccups.