Maybe. The big difference off-screen was the reaction to the fans, I think. Joss' response boiled down to, "I know, it was really hard to kill her, but sometimes the story demands what it does." That, even if you disagree with whether the character death served the narrative or not, is much less inflammatory than the eye-rolling about "hysterical women." That and the way the grief of the other characters was handled on-screen are some of the reasons I think there are still plenty of fans, myself included, who mourn Tara (or Wash) and may still write AUs out the wazoo where things work out differently, but the level of rage subsided a lot more quickly, whereas some of the post-CoE rage has subsided, but much definitely has not and doesn't look like it's about to. So, if RTD was trying to out-Joss Joss, which may or may not be the case, I have no idea, but if he was, I think he missed a rather key piece.