No, they would be praised for finally releasing game improving mechanics along with new content. Patches can never have the capacity to improve a game very much at one time.
Actually, he's right... People did complain a lot at the time of the release of warlords saying that it was very shallow outside of new civs and the new mechanics were quite frankly poor and seemingly rushed. Actually, a lot of people said that the new mechanics in Beyond the Sword were rushed and buggy (which was very true at the time of release), but as with everything we tend to put things from the past on a nice little pedestal. It'll be funny in 3-4 years time when this forum is full of threads about how Civ VI is rubbish and couldn't hold a candle to Civ V and how Civ VI is a step backwards etc. '
Beyond the Sword was good but I think some people give it a little bit too much credit these days. The corporations were a tad unbalanced and as such you could pretty much take over the world from them alone if you knew what you were doing. Spys had their problems too and a lot of people didn't like them. Not to mention the fact that the AI was never fixed in Civ IV and they were even more crazy than in Civ V. The only difference being they could hide behind their religion as an easy cure all for all confusing politics.
Back on topic though they wouldn't be praised around here unless they made the most perfect bug free super game with a few new inventive and well balanced features, and as this has never happened before I doubt it ever will. What will happen is they'll release some new content at some point that will change the game in some significant way, get criticised and some 3-4 years down the track when they release something new people will point to it as the greatest achievement of mankind whilst condemning whatever they released at the time. Of course this cycle will repeat, but hey.
If you want to really be an anti-money grabbing tactics then you should condemn expansion packs anyhow, as there have been people who complained about them as content that "should have been in from the beginning". The only difference is that we're used to expansion packs now. Change is scary, but its a brave new world, and there's nothing to say they won't "charge us for patches" (that is, make an expansion pack) in the future. Have a nice day.