Maybe you shouldn't take criticism as personal attacks, even if cowking's post was a bit douchey he still made some good points. Personally I think it's fine not going for Deva King, however not using colosseum seems rather counter productive: it only costs 1 point, it doesn't affect your skill distribution at all, and it provides huge benefits on some occasions - no one is saying it has to be integrated into the build and become a core skill. It's just that refusing to use the skill and giving "respec to caster to beat heroics" as the alternative seems really misleading tip for a new player trying out the guide.
Also, I know where you're going at with "oldschool build", I myself have done some guides on builds that weren't really straightforward and were based on flavor instead. Still, I don't think that justifies maxing retaliate. Imagine you make a cool caster druid build, several patches come out later and many skills change but you want to keep the build oldschool, like it was before. So what do you do, smax Pagan Rites? Probably not... Wrong skill distribution in this game can be very punishing, I think a better advice is "put those points anywhere you want" if you don't want to "ruin" the uniqueness of the build by suggesting Vessel of Retribution (which by the way, synergizes greatly with the build).
my humble opinion.. just think about it. I think in the end we all want the same, which is quality guides