We didn't shoot him in the foot, he shot himself in the foot. He knows the rules, but he obviously doesn't care, and it's undermining his ability to get stuff done.
Yes, he broke the rules and now he is going to be busy dealing with the fallout instead of continuing to bring the advances of science to the masses. How is this a good thing? Why do we have rules that do this? That is what I mean by shooting him in the foot. This is not an outcome that we want, and our rules got us here.
Following rules != Good for the human race