Sometimes it can be more effective to underplay your hand. If Matthew Hill had made the argument that the PACE Trial is a complete pile of crap, he would have got embroilled in all kinds of arguments with all kinds of people and had to give a right of reply to the PACE authors, amongst others.
If he instead he makes the argument that patients should be allowed to accept or decline any treatment without coercion, he can sidestep the issue of whether the PACE recommendations are an effective treatment or not and doesn't have to get into an argument with the authors or their supporters because it doesn't matter how good or bad the PACE Trial recommendations are - even if they are wonderful, patients have an absolute right to decline. This allows him to focus on a more simple message (patients being allowed to accept or decline any treatment) and he only has to ask local authorities or schools for comment. At least the PACE trial was described as "disputed", and not just by a minority of vexatious patients. Any stronger than that and he'd have had to invite the authors for comment.
Same with whether to use David Tuller, Nigel Speight, Jane Colby or Sonya Chowdhury. The BPS crew can easily claim that David Tuller has been a libellous vexatious adversary, Nigel Speight's views are well known and he was suspended by the GMC, etc - but Sonja Chowdury? Criticism coming from her is much harder for them to disagree with and she is the person they are least likely to be able to start a public spat with. Wouldn't we just love it if they did.
Same with whether to interview families of kids who have been locked up - in those cases a diagnosis will have been made, and whoever made it will have a right of reply. Instead we had normal families who were being chased and harrassed, which is much easier for a general listener to identify with.
Of course the above is pure speculation on my part, but I'm sure Matthew Hill will have given a lot of thought to how to best get his message across, and the tactical factors he considered when choosing the most effective way may not be ones that are immediately obvious to us.
In my opinion we have to allow him a free hand to make whatever editoral decisions he sees fit. At the end of the day he got us 40 minutes on national radio that came across as balanced and fair (much too balanced from our perspective, but it was addressed to the general listener) and publicised an extremely concerning issue that many listeners will have been completely unaware of.