Be patience
I think we should be patience with Mr. Browett.
He's new to the Apple ecosystem. Tim sees some capability in him and we should trust him. I'm not quite sure if it was macrumors or appleinsider, where I read the notion that Tim is a "beancounter".
I don't think he is a beancounter per se. To underline this, think of the buying of air freight in 1998 ... this was not bean counting I guess.
One problem with western companies is, that a manager is considered to be unsuccessful when he/she has the same job for more than 2 years. Product development and in particular "great work" isn't done in 2 years. In consequence, managers don't stay from beginning to end. So there is no gaining of any experience.
In contrast, in japanese companies, program manager have an average experience of ten years in a particular position and because of the lean-philosophy development programs are shorter - around 6 months. So managers gain experience on average of (just an example) 20 programs.
Beside Apple's own unique management culture, this company follows the rules of competing against time, lean manufacturing, zen, and so on.
Except lean manufacturing, nothing from the above is taught on western business schools. As MBA you have to focus on costs and that's all.
But Apple focuses on quality, user-experience and time.
What I wanted to say (in short): We think in western terms of doing business and of course this is not Apple's way of doing it and we all know it.
I think we should give him, Mr. Browett and of course Tim Cook and the whole Apple team some time. This is an extraordinary group of people, and they have lost their founder, mentor and friend.
I think fear together with creative motivation are great management tools, but I don't think that Apple performs classical hire & fire culture when something goes wrong in the upper ranks. I think Papermaster was an isolated case.