He's personally responded to a couple of emails I've written to the list about issues, one a change that wasn't compatible with our usage and one an actual nasty corruption bug. In both cases he responded very quickly with a very precise description of what was going on, and took charge of making sure it got fixed (in one case guiding me to make a patch for the usage I needed)
He's managed to keep a large project putting out regular releases and not regressing badly in any way. That's a bigger accomplishment than you realise until you've managed a large project with an ever growing number of participants, all with their own styles of doing things.
It's not all about shiny new features, it's about doing the current things better or supporting new hardware - and what do you care about the number he chooses. He didn't do it to make you happy, he did it to celebrate a birthday.
As others have said, what have you contributed to the world recently? I guess haters just gotta hate.