I don't understand your concern about someone "gutting" the PGF. It stood the test of time here on BFF under an electron-microscope type analysis and it is entirely irrelevant who Patterson and Gimlin were personally. Go ahead and try to destroy their reputation. It doesn't change the fact that a video is out there every aspect of which has been analyzed here at BFF over the many years.
In my opinion, anyone who wishes to claim the PGF was a hoax has to specifically disprove Gigantofootecus' ASH ratio calculations and Patty's forearm ratio. Not knowing those two issues intimately, much less at all, tells me everything I need to know about someone's ability to intelligently discuss the PGF. Moreover, have they read Bill's Munn's works, which, in my opinion, are a veritable treatise on the PGF, or even know who he is?
There are many people who have opinions about a lot of things they possess little or no knowledge. Let them come here and debate both critical, and tangential, issues of the PGF itself.