Our former pastor's wife cheated on him, he cheated on her in retaliation, confessed to the church and resigned. He did precisely as you suggest and then started a successful new church. Subsequently, he heeded a call to become a fulltime overseas missionary. I expect I'll catch up with him in eternity.
I think there’s a major difference between an incident of personal sin, as in the case of your former pastor, and a pattern of abusive behavior in a leadership position, as has been reasonably attributed to Mr. Driscoll. This is leaving aside questions of Mr. Driscoll’s “content,” so to speak, because his actions as leader would be intolerable even if I agreed with everything he taught.
I would be much more likely to join a congregation led by a person who had sinned and repented than one led by a person with a seriously erroneous concept of leadership.