Reeves was not a 'monster' but was still responsible for a proportion of our suffering
[edit: minor rewording and order changes]
It is difficult to estimate how much suffering Reeves caused us directly or indirectly. Obviously he cannot be singled out and blamed for all the suffering we have endured or the lack of progress achieved during his time, there is a whole status quo network of causes and bunch of people for that. However, Reeves was a captain of an important and notorious ship, so he is responsible for the direction it went during his reign and the waters he steered us all into.
I do not know how much power he had while in charge, compared to the rest of the CDC he was a small fish in a big pond, but compared to the rest of the ME/CFS community he was a big fish in a small pond and yielded substantial influence. He may have done some good as a whistleblower during the funding misdirection scandal (even if to save his own skin and/or take over as head of the CFS department), the awareness campaign was a mixed bag at best, there may have been the occasional OK study, but his overall legacy ended up being the introduction of a dubious application of the CFS criteria with a dead-end shift towards poor quality research into childhood adversity and adult personality features.
Reeves' supporters and apologists may argue that he was just following what he thought was best according to his knowledge. People are often judged over their actions more than intentions, so even if we assumed that Reeves had the best intentions, he was barking up the wrong tree and his actions stagnated, hindered, or even reversed progress into understanding ME/CFS which of course had the effect of prolonging the suffering of the patient community. In other words, he is responsible for a significant proportion of that suffering or its prolongation, regardless of intentions.
People may argue that psychological research is not necessarily negative and dismissive, while researchers cannot be blamed for misinterpretations of their work. However, this is only true if such research is conducted properly without spinning the results, which in CFS research is often not the case. Furthermore, such research has not only come at the cost of other types of potential avenues and promising research, but has been used to downplay the pathophysiology and shape an erroneous perception of ME/CFS which the relevant authorities are not willing to invest the necessary resources into it. Compared to societal burden and symptoms/disability, research funding for ME/CFS is at least one order of magnitude less than it should be. Meanwhile some people are dying and the rest are growing older with wasted lives and poor quality of life. This "rolling disaster" is still ongoing with minor but not major signs of changing.
Contrary to what optimistic proponents and outside observers may believe according to the spin, the model of CFS as a psycho>somatic functional illness perpetuated primarily by cognitive and behavioural factors, is on the brink of collapse and 20 years of research in that direction has failed to deliver. I do not really want anyone to suffer, I just want the causes of suffering to be resolved and the relevant problems to be properly elucidated. I do not wish death or even ill health to psychobabblers, if anything I want them to live to see their psychobabble exposed for the house of cards that it is, to fully comprehend the mistakes made and face the deserved damage to their reputation in proportion to their personal involvement and deviation from what is real. That said, I will not be losing any sleep at all if patients/advocates initiate successful proceedings which lead to harsher non-violent punishments.
As head of the CDC's CFS division, Reeves apparently bought into the "psychobabble" and did more bad than good as a result. He bet on the wrong horse and his gamble cost us not him. That is why the ME/CFS community is angry about his legacy, critical of the rosy eulogies, and are less than sympathetic about his passing; not because we are inherently nasty people compared to the general population. We just want to be treated fairly and allocated resources according to the seriousness of the illness we face. That is all, it is not an outrageous request. Frustration and suffering will continue as long as this does not happen and people in positions of authority do not take the appropriate action relative to their capabilities.
The collective suffering that Reeves is probably responsible for in some way or another, outweighs the suffering endured when friends and family lose a loved one. His death had nothing to do with us, I am just saying that it is difficult to feel particularly sympathetic about the situation from (William) Reeves' perspective. I never wished him bodily harm, do not take delight in whatever mourning will result, do not want people that knew him to suffer unfairly. I would sacrifice my own life if it meant all the above positives could be achieved without furthering suffering and there was a timely reversal of the damage that psycho>somatic relegation has done to the understanding of ME/CFS. As many of us long-termers will probably have to spend much or even the rest of our lives enduring or working on this issue anyway, our lives are already at least partly sacrificed. I hope that before I die I would have made a positive difference to the world.