Nothing.
Devin is an entertainment writer with decent chops but there's plenty of professional critics out there who match if not exceed his abilities and as a bonus, they are not nauseatingly pretentious or outright sleazes.
What's special to Tim about Devin is that he's a close friend. They have the same taste, and like to get trashed. He's also very good at his job.
The thing is, most film writers are either just straight up bad, or a bit boring. Devin would have bold opinions, black and white opinions and could explain very simply why a movie is good or bad from his perspective. Plus he was always angry and dismissive of bad movies or film makers which was just fun to read. That bully part of personality would present itself in his reviews, and made it far more readable.
That is why even though all these BMD people knew Devin was around, and wanted him back.
The writers of BMD? They all bow to Devin. He built that place, and other than one other writer who was hired by Devin themselves, they are all really generic and boring. Of course they would look up to Devin, he's vastly superior to them in writing about movies. The new editor Meredith is extremely boring. If she didn't get hired for this job, no one would be interested in her opinions on cinema.
Even after he left his podcast once he was unmasked, his lady co-host, Amy Nicholson, was almost begging him on her podcast for him to come back. She's an atrocious critic. She needs him. Without Devin there is no point to her show, which was once very popular. It reminds me of how Siskel was always terrified Ebert would leave.
The BMD crew will always love him, he built that place. It will also never be the same, never have the same audience without him. They all knew he was still working there. Devin never lashed out at people who demure to him, who bow to him. They always wanted him back, and they definitely need him.
Its easy to look the other way when not doing so would destroy your livelihood. Only one writer made one small comment, Alex Revielo, that it was handled poorly, Tim fired him. But no one else spoke up, because, like I said, they all wanted him back because they actually do need him.
Yeah, if Tim is such a great guy, why did he fire Alex Rivielo for merely writing, the situation has been handled poorly? Give me a break. Everything Tim has done says he's a piece of shit.