[myceothrowaway]

I would say that the "most experienced programmer" and the third team member (who I haven't mentioned at all) work equally as hard. They are both very competent, but the third team member definitely looks to the "most experienced programmer" for guidance.

I do not think Rob is purposefully pushing buggy code, I just think he has no desire or motivation to properly test it.

The third team member has no negative complaints about Rob besides saying that he prefers to pair program with the "most experienced programmer".

From my own perspective if we removed the "most experienced programmer" the team would sustain in the short term, but it would really struggle in the long term.

The "most experienced programmer" speaks highly of the third team member. That doesn't mean he isn't a jerk or a control freak, but from our daily stand up meetings it feels like him and the person he speaks highly of are efficiently delivering high quality code while Rob is having trouble delivering things at a similar pace and has complaints about pushing buggy code.

These complaints have been going on from the "most experienced programmer" for 6-8 months now and I think part of the reason it has festered this long was because I was not sure at the beginning whether there was any credence to what he was saying, but now I feel like his complaints are very valid.

[new_hackers]

It sounds like you have considered all the angles. I've just seen situations where management was blinded by the "hero programmer". However, with the perspective of the third member, it sounds like Rob is the weakest link (BTW, someone has to be the weakest). If he really is messing up your team's mojo, then either work towards the goal of "Making Rob Better", or make a business decision and let Rob go.