I always expect people there to be more enlightened than they are, and I end up getting rage-y). So yeah, it's nice to agree civilly.

While the population there is probably more than half old timey regulars who've been around the forums and had every argument before, I think there's also a contingent of folks there for whom Whedonesque is pretty much their whole experience of the fandom. Which creates quite a skewed perspective and often leads to some degree of wank, at least from what I've seen. It's an odd place. What tends to emerge as the majority opinion on a subject there rarely matches with my experience of fandom outside the site. Though I've only been around for a short while, relatively speaking, so I may have a skewed view of it myself.

I really do identify with him to an unhealthy degree

Hey, as long as you're self-aware, it can't be that unhealthy! :) What's embarrassing for me isn't that I identify with him, but that it's very easy for anyone who knows both the show and me & my past to draw the correct parallels to S5/S6 Spike. I guess I'm an open book that way.