Maxwell, as well as many other Core devs, have taken an enormous amount of abuse. I regularly see them called liars and accused of scheming to "cripple" Bitcoin. I'd never want to be in their positions. It underscores how important it was that Satoshi remained anonymous. There are many evil people in the world.
If Maxwell decides he's taken enough abuse and decides he'd be happier leaving the space, I wouldn't blame him at all. It would be bad for Bitcoin, which is a bit bad for me, but he should do what's best for him. He's already earned his place as a very important part of the history of cryptocurrency.

Many of us appreciate the contributions of gmaxwell, and this is a good occasion to say we appreciate the work he's done.

I've followed the recent controversy to some degree and certainly noticed many unfair personal attacks directed at the core developers in general, and gmaxwell in particular. That's just in people's nature, I suppose.

My hope is that gmaxwell takes a well-earned "retirement" from Bitcoin development, and that after a nice rest a very intelligent and productive pseudonymous individual starts contributing. Those of us who are fans will smile and not ask too many questions.

It can be related to this
https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinxt/comments/3wytqx/do_any_of_the_bitcoin_core_developers_have/cy0qpqc

You really are one shameless person.

Maxwell has claimed that he has experience scaling large systems.  He used to work at Juniper. Presumably he worked on some cryptographic aspects of their products as well.  Draw your own conclusions.