I know what you mean about the Choirmaster thing - the reason Nick hated Choirs was because he was in one as a boy and hated it. I've only ever had good experience with choirmasters, and very encouraging ones, but you've got to be so careful to get the balance right.
Basically, he was employed on the basis that he would make some changes and bring both churches up-to-date. (the churchwardens even described him as the best of a bad bunch from interview stage)
He used to be a salesman, and as such (from my own experience of pushy salesmen), used to foist his opinion on people, and just charge ahead with stuff. If people disagreed with him, he would shout them down.
He changed all the service times in both churches to the same time each Sunday - not such a bad thing in itself, because at the time, they were swapping between 9:30 and 11am each week.(ie St Mary's would have 11 when we had 9:30 and vice versa)
Waht he did, though, was change them without consultation. He changed St Mary's to 9:30 and St Michael's to 11am, which meant we lost 3 members of the choir straight away, because it was a mum and 2 kids, and she started work at 12.
She tried to tell him about this, and that she would like it to be reconsidered and he basically told her he wasn't listening, was very rude to her, and she stopped coming. When he left, she came back straight away.
(he did rescind about halfway through his term by changing St Michael's back to 10am and St Mary's to an afternoon service of 5pm, but we'd already lost loads by then, and a lot of them wouldn't come back because of him)
He made huge changes other than that, like moving the altar into the nave of the church, and making us all take communion in the middle of the church (to older people and staid traditionals, this was awful, because (they mostly said) that they felt like they were on display.)
He also said, often and loudly, that he wanted to get rid of the choir stalls and have us out in the nave with the congregation (yes, and the communion rails!)(basically, it would mean that while we were singing, we would be in everyone's way, and they would be in ours. We wouldn't be able to see the organ for condusting, and it would have been a total mess)
(we did compromise by going down to the pews during the second hymn for the prayers and sermon - that does mean, however, that noone's allowed to sit on the first 2 rows, or we have to sit down the side aisles, which means that we would have been closer and more visible staying where we were!)
He publically humilated a disabled lady we have, because she used to sit in the central passageway, and when they boarded and carpetted the nave, he made a big deal in the middle of the service, telling her to come up to the front and park her wheelchair in the space. (I overheard her complaining to him about it - she was mortified and really embarrassed at being singled out in the middle of the service)
A lot of people left because he was horribly brash, and nasty in speaking to people - if they didn't agree with him, he wouldn't talk to them seriously. he was also very patronising - talking down to people.
He stood in front of the organ once, telling a visitor how wonderful it was that we had a young organist (a 14year old chorister who was learning), then turned around and told someone else that he would rip the whole thing out if it were up to him (and I really do mean turned around as well- the boy was still at the organ when he heard him say that).
A bereaved lady felt he was very rude to her when she was trying to organise a funeral, and lots of people have said that he never once came out to see them when they had been absent from church for a time due to illness (when a priest from their local church had been to see them, even though they'd never been to that church!)
He decided that, because he preferred St Mary's, that he would make that the "family-centred" church, and made great moves to encourage families to St Mary's - spent a lot of time and effort making St Mary's welcoming and up-to-date, technologically, and basically left St Michael's to rot - he openly showed preference to St Mary's, that's not just speculation. Families stopped coming to St Michael's and going to St Mary's, which didn't help congregation, and we had to close our Sunday School.
He spent effort making a homeless showering and breakfast facility in St Michael's - which isn't a bad thing, but we have no homeless people in this town - they've not had many users of the facility, and it cost a heck of a lot of money to do. (at the time, the fund-raising could have been concentrated on something more immediately important)
He also tried to raise money to get a junior choir going, but he tried to court this professional choirmaster man, who wasn't interested, promising all these money advances (and note, he would have only been a Junior Choirmaster, he wouldn't have had anything to do with the existing choir), and gave the man a copy of the church keys (against advice). the man then moved to Wales with the set of keys. He didn't seem interested from the beginning, and Nick would have been wiser trying to find someone who wanted less money for the position (being's as we didn't have the money, and it would have been fundraising that could have been spent elsewhere, and we were only guaranteed to be able to pay the man for a year anyway! Then what would have happened? sorry, we can't afford you anymore, so the junior choir will have to stop!)
there are loads of other things he said or did, and sometimes I wish he could see these rants I do, because he really brought down morale.
When he had to annouce he was leaving - I grinned like a lunatic at the announcement. The only reason I hid it (eventually) was because he was leaving because his dad had become very ill and so had to go and help his family. I sometimes pray thank you to God for making his dad ill (and I know that sounds awful, but his dad was old and ill anyway, this was just a worsening of his condition, and it was the best thing that had happened to the church in a long while)