New Linus? He is a guy who sends dozens of mails every month and has cursed in a few handpicked ones. That doesn't make him especially "cursy". I'd say he's about average.
And Howard Dean was a fairly soft-spoken politician until one particularly excited outburst at a single rally happened to have been captured on mic.
The "actual" frequency of the outbursts is somewhat secondary to the perception of frequency. Every time Linus writes a profanity-laced rant, even if it's email number 83/175 for the day, that particular piece is preserved, archived, and passed around the internet for giggles, further reinforcing whatever pre-existing conception the person referencing the email is arguing for.
