It seems not to many people here backing the original poster.

Ernie left because the stress/lack of freedom/number of hours that are currently happening at the Level III position are not worth the end result.

Very few people will survive. The stress will either cause people to:

Quit (EK, BD)
Do something stupid and get canned (GD)
Or get canned for lack of performance (list is to long to include)

Ernie is an outstanding person and any company that loses that kind of quality hurt itself. No matter what the spin is.