Eligius was the first pool I used. I then became better acquainted with the operator's public persona by reading posts here, decided he was brain damaged in a way that I did not want to subsidize, and took my business elsewhere. No big deal, this was months ago.
The open source code use/attribution licensing requirement is simple and unambiguous. It must be done in whole, or not; end of story.
However, if Crusader Rabbit* is taking it upon himself to pronounce which blockchain ledger implementations are scams and which aren't, he needs to either come up for fresh air or quietly drown, as he has indeed gone off the deep end. They all could be characterized as scams when seen from outside Nakamototown, and in fact are by more than a few reasonable persons.
So, yes, in my opinion it looks bad when factions running the same basic confidence scheme are screwing around with each other. It doesn't matter whether or not that characterization is fair or correct. The perception of seaminess is already there thanks to Silk Road and others, it's not going away, and quarrelling amongst the children just reinforces the perception.
* Crusader Rabbit Crusade 1 Episode 01
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3hHQvkUhJo
