RNL actually stands for REAL Nerd Life. Totally different person, I expect. Rick's Nerd Life is clearly casual, at best.
Also worth pointing out that Rick and I do not know each other (so far as I am aware) and therefore we either have similar sources for our information, or our separate sources agree on the details. But nothing I said here came from Rick, and presumably vice versa.
As for Bobby Vala, like most complete dumbfuck lunatics, he's a right-winger. That alone causes friction between him and BFS then and now, as it has mostly always been staffed by lefties (with the possible exception, I believe, of Dave Proctor - the first founder of BFS to leave the company -- possibly specifically because of ideological differences with the other founders). And also can confirm from what I've heard that basically everyone in the industry hates Bobo and that he really has no choice but to run his own toy company because practically no one wants to work with him.
He's a piece of garbage, a wannabe tough guy, and sucks at his job. That's why he got shitcanned at Hasbro and has jerked off to his grudge about it ever since. Also, he PERSONALLY BLAMED ME when his first Kickstarter failed, for those of you that weren't around on Fwoosh to see him do that. It was hilarious because he's such a fucking loser and all I did was tell everyone why his action figures kind of sucked and why he was bad at his job (to be clear, I only said things that were true and you know they were true because he fixed it all prior to his successful Kickstarter -- which means I actually fixed his company for him and never got a dime).
If all this wasn't enough to get you upset with BFS, by the way, everyone should also know that what Andrew did to Erik and Catrina has basically caused Erik to have a complete breakdown and at least consider (not sure yet if he'll ever follow through with) completely abandoning the toy community and moving on to do something else with his life, as far as I understand. Like... this situation broke him. Not something I'd say is deserved for a guy that's legitimately one of the kindest dudes I know.