To quote Bill Munny, "Deserve's got nothing to do with it." What you "deserve," what the troll "deserves" should have no bearing whatsoever on your conduct or on the conduct of others. There is no Internet Fairness Doctrine.

Creatives have power. They have created. Trolls do not. They can only destroy. Most importantly, they can only destroy if they are given credibility. It's worthwhile for the creator to address any third party attempting to give a troll credibility. It is most assuredly not worthwhile for the creator to address the troll - because that gives the troll more credibility than any other move the creator can make.

The rest of the discussion is facile and pointless - an arbitrary ranking of imaginary categories. This stands out, though:

In fact, the entire point of the internet is that people can respond to their criticism placing critic and subject on equal footing.

No, the entire point of the internet was to save time and postage stamps. Assigning some egalitarian morality to a switching protocol is to set yourself up for disappointment.