McLaren wasn't even in the hunt for the title last year as they threw an incredible number of points away. RBR had a very significant pace advantage over Ferrari that year; having been bamboozled by the tyres early on, from Monaco onwards there were no more problems in that regard and they were over half a second clear of Ferrari in qualifying more or less everywhere. In those circumstances, if I were Newey and I'd designed that car, I'd be looking at the race team and wanting to know why the Ferrari was still in the hunt with one race to go when it didn't have anything like winning pace.
Following team instructions "usually" is another way of saying he follows them when it suits him. And the Barcelona example is pretty weak when you consider that he couldn't have kept Kimi behind him if he tried. He followed the team's instruction as opposed to what - having a pointless accident?
Err, just because McLaren threw away points with mechanical issues and pit stops doesn't mean they can be suddenly removed from the equation and RB declared to have a pace advantage. In the first half of the year especially RB was definitely further back than at the end of the year too.
As for 'why Ferrari was still in the hunt' isn't it obvious? When McLaren weren't having problems they were winning, and Red Bull had reliability issues. Nothing whatsoever to do with race operations or Vettel. Vettel would've won the championship in Abu Dhabi without reliability issues.
Yet again RedReni RBR bias.
As for the 'listening to team vs having accident' argument, it's the same for FL, if you really believe Vettel is risking points by doing it... Which I don't.