I contributed to the hijack so I'll weigh in. I think closing the thread was a mistake. This site already doesn't have enough people posting to different topics and if something gains some traction the mods should allow some leeway. Depending on the software and it settings it may be possible to split threads.

The topic to which it had been hijacked is a legitimate one, even if one side is entirely wrong. ;-) And the some of the posts were heated, but not abusive and didn't show any real evidence of moving in that direction.