Late to the party here, and I worked on the other side of the country (ATC at the New York Tracon-EWR area). While our airspace and local procedures are different, there is one thing that's likely the same. Airport rates are set by traffic management taking into account the weather, runway configuration, and whatever other variables. At busy airports with high demand, they try to maximize capacity and efficiency, so those rates are usually optimistically high and assume best case scenarios. When we're running a tight sequence with visuals, we don't have to worry about losing standard separation to compression, for example if you're on a visual you can land 2.1 miles behind as opposed to 2.5 miles if on an instrument approach (large behind large). When you have 45 aircraft airborne landing at an airport that has a 45 rate it means our margin for error is nil as far as spacing goes, and having aircraft that require extra spacing throw a monkey wrench into our plans. Somebody will end up having to hold or divert, so why should I penalize an aircraft behind the one that can't comply? My working philosophy was always to make the non complying aircraft be the one diverting and keep the flow going with the rest, so I can totally see and understand the perspective of this SFO controller even if I may disagree with the language and tone of voice used.