Am I crazy or are GL fans completely irrational about this???

[Trey Strain]

Pretty much this.
It was a noble experiment in its way, but the absolute wrong place to put a new character at the time. If Simon had been brought in as the new Airwave or something brand new, he might not have had name recognition, but he wouldn't have been so utterly redundant

Geoff couldn't help himself. He had brought in eight new CORPS, or however many it was, and he wasn't about to stop there. I think it was a cry for help -- "Stop me before I create again!"

And then of course there was the imperative of political correctness. We have a gay Lantern, a half-Latino Lantern and a black Lantern, and now we need a Muslim Lantern too, the thinking went.