I guess what I really mean then is: did this guy get his ass chewed by a higher-up (who was smart enough not to put it in so many words) because it's how the institution operates?
Usually tenured profs who're producing good research don't get hassled much; heck, same with untenured profs who are producing good research to some extent.
It does vary a little by school, if the school's administration wants to cultivate a particular image. For example, CMU was getting a reputation for taking 9-10 years for a PhD. It was for a variety of reasons not all the profs' fault, but it did include some aspects of profs wanting to keep their senior/productive students around producing more papers by dragging out their PhDs. The administration decided they didn't want that reputation, so started putting strong pressure to get people out within 6-7 years typically, 8 years max, which reduced that considerably.
