No, it wasn't a reaction to that misstep of Joyent's. The problem was that Joyent was not bringing in code and keeping the product up-to-date. The project had stagnated, and Joyent had shown that they were incapable of keeping a nascent, popular project growing in good order. iojs was born of developers being frustrated at being unable to develop, not as a political counterpoint.

iojs was created a year after Noordhuis's public flogging - that's a pretty slow counterpoint if it was the reason for iojs.