I largely agree with this. I think Sam expected it to be like the airsoftfatty piece. Which has huge undertones of mocking the target, but otherwise kind of let airsoftfatty do his thing on camera for content. And I think Sam was fine with that being the setup (his comment was, "its true i have fallen off" in the documentary interview I believe).
And just as airsoftfatty kind of let fatty express himself in his own way, Sam was trying to do that with his own flair (which of course this was going to be Sam's flair, what the fuck Mr Jomha were you expecting).
I firmly believe airsoftfatty's piece was filmed with bad intentions, but Ian got somewhat self-concerned while editing and realizing a mocking tone considering the shithole house fatty lived in would be really fucking malicious. So he softened it, and then got a lot of lib fans/support for the nicer tone, and then he spiraled into what became the Raped.
Part of me thinks he has a lot of guilt over the airsoftfatty piece, but then... not? He removed content cops but not Full Force. He largely ghosted fatty (I guess over Sam Hyde-ties). The dude's brain is fried -- maybe he now thinks Full Force was his high water mark and he keeps chasing that high. I can't spend too much mental energy trying to guess what his SSRI'd self is thinking.