I agree is was heavy-handed of upper management to micro-manage the issue, but it appears middle management was doing a lousy job of handling it on its own. You'd think most staff members would have learned not to use most of these cliches ages ago; absent that, their immediate supervisors should have taken responsibility for some retraining.
Ultimately, however, the big boss is the one responsible for the success or failure of the product. There are certainly more tactful ways to have handled the cliche problem (maybe he already tried them, working down the chain?), but who can argue that the boss wasn't right?
