The quote, and the take, are both correct. Gir, for whatever reason, has been seeing the con as a huge stressor in his life, from what I hear, and wanted rid of it. He seemed to distance himself from the con this year, and that plus some strategic personnel losses (people are getting the hell out of Detroit, imagine that) caused this year to be a bit of a mess. With those losses, there's not a whole lot of talent to take over. AC, for all its flaws, does this right, there's someone understudying to take over at pretty much every upper position. FCN, with free beer on tap and perhaps the flashiest dances of any con, was a party that got out of hand, not a well-run convention. I think this year saw a fairly hefty attendance increase, so it certainly wasn't loss of membership.
The one thing that's mostly forgotten at this point is that originally it was only *half* Gir's vanity con. Originally it was Gir and 2's vanity con, when they lived together, and just before 2 went off to his *massively* successful standup career in LA. (cough) Amazingly, his first attempt at a vanity con lasted three times longer than the second, in a much smaller community.