I agree with your assessment of him.Didn't much like his videos, seemed to play a jackass too much. I don't blame HD for shutting him down.
I disagree that HD should have had any role in shutting him down. Maybe get him to throw a disclaimer on his videos that he is a private entity with no connection to HD and call it a day.
It seems like they were grumpy about videos in a dealership and threatened to pull the dealership license from his friend unless he abandoned the channel completely. Again, poorly dealt with in my opinion. I think the dealership segments were helpful, not harmful to HD but if corporate wanted them stopped, a reasonable request would have been "no more filming in dealerships" instead of the nuclear option they pursued.