Oh yeah, I wasn't talking about the secret at all by that point ;) I was discussing how over-the-top villains tend to be less hated even if they kill hundreds of people and try to conquer planets, while regular, realistic guys are hated for comparatively "small" offenses because people personally connect to the latter, but not to the former. So in order to be taken seriously, an over-the-top villain has to do something personally horrible to a character the audience cares about (not random extras) to be hated, so they can remember that oh yeah, that's why the bad guy is bad. Obviously not the same, but the point of moments like Coulson's death is to bring a tinge of BB-esque realistic evilness into the over-the-top villain.

There are several examples of this in the movieverse already, I think. Stuff like how cruel Obadiah was to Tony when he was stealing the reactor, or Loki, again, threatening to kill (or rape) Jane in Thor, or Hammer threatening Vanko's burd in IM2, or Blonsky referring to that female agent as an annoying bitch in TIH. Stuff that's just, kinda, viscerally hateful that hits you in the little-kid part of your psyche rather than the "I theoretically know that conquering the world is bad because of X Y Z" part.