Someone like, for example, Wylted or Drafterman who are widely known and respected in the community (much less OreEle or Airmax) would obviously have thoughts of their own, thoughts which bsh1 would have been disinclined to have to contend with. But, with someone in your situation, you're going to defer to him. That is not good.
Frankly, I don't have an issue with the locking and agree with it. The style of moderation I am most familiar is reddit-style, and locking threads getting out of hand and off topic is a matter of course.
The Free Speech issues are, of course, nonsensical: no one's free speech has been hampered (not that you have free speech on a private web site anyway). Free Speech doesn't mean speech free from consequences, nor does it mean freedom to speak in specific places of one's choosing. If a thread is getting close to getting out of hand, with multiple violations of the CoC looming on the horizon, then locking the thread and splashing a bit of cold water on things is certainly preferable than just idly waiting until people actually do commit violations of the CoC and earn bannings.
I think it's frankly very weird that people are suggesting that there should have been actual bannings instead of locking a thread, as if banning is somehow less of a reaction. Bannings are actual punishments against specific people. Locking a thread isn't even a punishment against anyone.
And yeah, people can pick up and carry on the conversation elsewhere, but who cares? If it's on a different site, go for it. Nothing that happens outside this site (and discord) should matter here, so that's not a factor. If someone wants to create a new thread (in the appropriate forum; I heavily endorse the use of locking and moving threads to keep various fora on topic) and continue a conversation, they can.
And yet, that hasn't happened. Which I think is telling. If a specific conversation was so important, then certainly people would have continued it elsewhere, but they haven't. I think this indicates that it was simply people's tempers getting out of hand and once the momentum of the conversation was interrupted and all the hot air let out, there was nothing of substance to keep it afloat.