Howdy ya'll,
I wouldn't normally respond to a thread of this sort - already lots of acrimony and name calling - except that you pushed a couple of my personal buttons, rudeness and leadership behavior, and for that you get a dose of my own personal philosophy. And since you, GregoryTheWatcher, asked an opinion on a personal example, some of my comments may seem a bit personal. Please don't take them that way - I wasn't there. These are simply general comments. You were the leader, you made the decisions, you live by the consequences, nothing me nor anyone else says should make you feel one bit better or worse - that's what being a leader is.
Also please bear in mind that this is ONLY a game. Right or wrong, you're obviously taking this pretty hard, you're catching a lot of blame and feeling a lot of anger, justified or otherwise is not my call, but no billion-dollar corporation is collapsing, nobody's life is on the line, and reputations rise and fall with every person you interact with. Appropriate or inappropriate decisions in one instance run should not be keeping you awake nights or raising your blood pressure. Save that for real life.
And now for the armchair quarterbacking -
1) The leader's position should never need to be filled - all groups should always work together perfectly harmoniously, everyone doing what they need to do, with no disagreements or mistakes. And most of the time, in almost all groups, PUG, good friends, or guildies, they do, and you might as well not have a leader at all. But the very few times that leadership is required, IT IS REQUIRED! and there is nothing more important right then than that everyone know who the responsible person is, including the responsible person himself. That means you, in this instance. Yes, the group should have been able to clear the small amount of space before Drak without a leader, but in this case a responsible person was suddenly required and was not there. You let your group down at that moment, without doing anything wrong, simply by not being responsible. If, as a leader, you ever have to go AFK, make sure the group knows who the new leader is. In Warcraft, that means turn over the leadership. Yes, it's very important to work out these arrangements with your fiancee - I've been married for 13 years, I know. Is it more important than being leader for a UBRS run? I would hope so. So pick a good second and make him leader until you can devote full time to your position again. And when you make him leader, make him leader - he will be the one responsible for kicking YOU out of the party if he feels the other paladin was right and you are not pulling your weight. Just because you organized the raid doesn't mean the rest of the group has to let you do whatever you want if they feel it's hurting the group.
2) Consequences, not punishment. This is something every parent has to learn, as well as every teacher, judge, police officer and every other menmber of society, and something which is all too often completely screwed up. Being leader of the group makes it all the more critical that you act in a completely fair manner, meting out appropriate consequences for people's actions with no hint of punishment or revenge. The other paladin was acting like an idiot, doing and saying things that were completely inappropriate, you kick him from the group. If you find the things he says personally objectionable and abusive, you report him to the GM. If you think he should be kicked, you say so to the group, and they respond that they will leave if you do, you accept that as a group decision and either kick him out, accepting the consequences, or leave him in and accept that you CANNOT kick him out. You can, however, inform the rest of the group that you are putting him on /ignore, and if there is anything actually pertinent that he says, someone else will need to relay the message. What you absolutely cannot do as a leader, is wait until the worst possible moment and exercise your authority as a leader to do the most damage possible to him out of revenge. Sure, it may teach him a lesson, but you could have done that by kicking him out the first time. Even if you were totally in the right, the appearance of acting in a petty, revengeful, spiteful manner weighs heavily against you.
To be fair, there is a lot of adolescent behavior in this game, some of it even coming from adolescents. You do not have to take abuse, either as a leader or a player, and it sounds like your particularly problem child was dishing out a healthy dose of it. You were the aggrieved party and had I been present in that party, I have no doubt that I would have cheered your decision to boot him after his first (and repeated!) abusive post. Even if it weakened the group, no one needs to put up with that sort of BS. But to hold your punishment in check, to keep him and therefore his supporters in the group until he was no longer needed, and then cut him out just before the group was rewarded for their work was mean, underhanded, and spiteful. If a consequence is deserved, it should be meted out immediately, not saved until it can be the most destructive. That is no longer a consequence, it is revenge.
Like I said, I wasn't there, and even the people who were there have no idea whether you were acting out of a sense of revenge or simply doing what you thought was right. The question is, what were you thinking when you did this? Only you know whether you were trying to do your best as the leader of the group or whether you gave in to an all-too-human need to get revenge for a slight. And unfortunately, nothing you or anyone else says on this forum will ever make the slightest bit of difference. At this point, if after calm reflection that you acted hastily out of revenge, then your co-belligerent achieves the moral high ground and his abusive behavior becomes justified. If you persist in arguing that kicking someone out in the middle of a boss fight was an appropriate punishment, then very few that have never been in this position will believe you. I wish you the very best of luck, but I'm afraid the only appropriate solution in this case is to simply let it die and take what lessons you can from the conflict.
Good luck, and sorry for the sermon...
Trubble - a lvl 52 paladin that doesn't EVER want to be the leader!