Actually, I think this was an example of Captains' authority. Instead of being used to tell the fighting CC to suck it up and get to work, instead it was used to remove a potentially hazardous situation from the airplane. While I'm sure the passengers were not exactly pleased with the outcome, at some point there just has to be a line drawn. This line was crossed and the Captain determined that this crew just could not work together.
As far as manufactured tension goes, it might just be that the stress of working for that particular company all came together at a bad time and caused some cracking.