Bingo. It's interesting to compare "Gygax as viewed through his writings" with "Gygax as often viewed", and "Gygax in real life" was probably a different entity altogether. Take for example his comments in the very start of the DMG about how you should absolutely change rules that don't fulfill the purpose of your campaign, just make sure to understand the ramifications and possible ripple effect on gameplay first. This conflicts directly with some stories I've heard tell of him being, shall we say, a "real stickler for the rules in all cases," which again conflicts with stories I've heard of his actual at-home gameplay.
Sometimes it's also a matter of people latching on to one thing said and not paying attention to the message as a whole. People take Gygax's statements about how strictly the rules should be kept to mean following RAW to the letter, rather than looking at his other writings which explicitly encourage DMs to decide on a rule or change them as they see fit. In reality the message was less "Stick to RAW" and more "Stick to whatever rules you decide to use."