In my opinion, and this is just MY OPINION, you're being to cautious of a Mod. I mean, you've been here a lot less then the old members. We, as a whole, know that minor flaming has always been part of the forum, like it or not. We always fight a bit with each other, because hardware is SUCH a competitive field. Trying to enforce peace here, after it's been okay for us to have these debates for so long, is just the wrong way to do things.
I know this is COMPLETELY out of common sense, but frankly, in your place, I would apologize to Giancarlo personally, (even after what he did), because IF you have been at these forums for LONG ENOUGH, and learned how things go, you would learn that Giancarlo just always backs his opinions with very good facts. And he just doesn't tolerate it when people say false facts. There is nothing really wrong with that, at least if you have stayed here long enough and learned that.
I'm not directly blaming it on you for Giancarlo leaving us, but you definately shouldn't have been so full of ego when trying to make that thread. Besides, MY idea, was to have no responces at all, and just a poll, but because you said that didn't work, you shouldn't have expected anything else from that thread. That's just the way things go in this forum. It just takes some getting used to.