Like most public “dick” presentations, Phil Plait’s “Don’t Be a Dick” speech at The Amazing Meeting 8 was controversial.
Whole tomes have been written on this topic already (this post by Daniel Loxton and the endless comments summarize the debate nicely).
Here are my thoughts in brief:
- Until you can figure out for yourself what being a dick means, you probably should refrain from communication with other humans.
- If the goal of your “communication” is not to educate or convince others then you are probably engaging in intellectual masturbation. Like all masturbation, it has a time and a place. That time and place are rarely when you are in front of the general public.
- Phil’s loyalty to Wesley Crusher’s memic vocabulary was unfortunate as term “dick” is inflammatory.
- The term did not actually matter. Regardless of vocabulary, Phil told people who think they communicate effectively that they use ineffective behaviors. Those folks were likely to resolve the resulting cognitive dissonance not by admitting that they are ineffective, but by arguing that those behaviours are actually effective.
- The Skeptic Movement/New Atheist alliance to combat Intelligent Design seems to have long outlived its utility.
- Making strong, evidence based arguments impresses your audience. Using those arguments to reduce your opponent to an incoherent mess of invective, contrasting reason contrast with unreason, is even better. Becoming said mess is not.
- Apply a very basic secular humanist principle. People may be idiots, but they are still people. Treat them as such.
The Finch and Pea 
I think you’ve missed some important points.
First, Phil Plait explicitly equated skepticism with atheism in the preamble of his speech. So this skepticism/new atheism alliance is not the issue.
Second, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennet are clearly not dicks. An argument could be made either way for Hitch or Dawkins. The four horsemen of the new atheist movement are not the problem. The skeptic/new atheist alliance is not the issue.
I fail to follow the reasoning of your first point, as atheism is not necessarily the same as New Atheism.
The heated debate, fueled by the perception that Plait’s remarks targeted the New Atheist community and some leaders, highlights the divergent goals of the two communities and the futility of explicitly integrating them in the absence of a shared, serious threat.