well, that started accelerating quickly. But yeah, I thought the party was bigger when they kicked him out. Going from a 5 person team to 4, when he seems to have been your crowd control dps...
Usually when they do this trope, the person isn't contributing much to the combat dps anymore, but was doing all the strategy/tactics/logistics/support/buff/debuff/etc. This version just straight up removed a major combatant and hasn't thought they needed to replace him?