No, of course it is not really the referencing in itself, but good referencing is a good indication of how well-read the author is in the literature relevant to his/her subject (and how well-organised are his/her thoughts).

We can argue the toss over Dames' ideas until the cows come home but, as with any piece of research, there'll be good ideas and bad ideas, ideas we agree with and ideas we don't agree with. That's not the problem, the problem (IMHO) is labelling an author with one worders - especially authors who are working in an area such as the one most of us here are interested in and one where there are so few researching (and publishing) their work. Describing Dames' work as 'fluffy' strikes me as very unfair when, in most respects, he has researched his subjects well and has presented them clearly and methodically - whether you agree with those ideas is a completely different matter.