When I wrote my comment above I skimmed through Thomas Lord's essay, found that the
parts I remembered being there were all in their place, pasted the link and pressed "submit".
In particular, I remembered the paragraph from which you quote as written
in a ironic manner, suggesting with a wink at the reader that Lord actually
wrote the post. Now that I've reread the essay, I don't see that at all. I
think in that paragraph he probably says what he means. That, and you are
right about the style.
In short, I retract my claim. Sorry to whoever I misled! My confidence was completely misplaced.
I should be wary of the account anyhow. For calibration: it's just false to say egcs was due to "friends of Cygnus" and "hostile"; it was friends of GCC with the intention it should turn out as it did, happily.
I can't find anything archived to check but, as I recall, Lord later posted a bizarre sort of semi-retraction in rms' name, and rms fired him soon afterwards, possibly as a result. Perhaps that's partly a source of rms-didn't-write-it ideas? I don't remember the suggestion at the time.
In short, I retract my claim. Sorry to whoever I misled! My confidence was completely misplaced.