West this is what you were asked to do, and you were asked in a respectful manner.........
By not doing it I think you were showing disrespest to both the original poster and the mod....
The thread was created by a long time member to announce his leaving, IMO it was created to allow replies to the original post, ie. we'll miss you, we don't believe you, good luck etc.....
As a former mod yourself, you should know the difficulties that trying to keep everybody happy brings.........
It wasn't a big request, and EP had no problem with it so why blow it up like this???