Hi, Diplodocus - and hopefully you’ve been welcomed to the forum by now; even if not on this thread apparently! I think a lot of responders [lurkers] here were hoping somebody more knowledgeable about Buggs would weigh in here to give you a more definitive answer. Since that hasn’t been forthcoming [yet], you’ll have to accept my humble first offering here. Which is only to admit that I know little of Dr. Buggs save the impression he left here in his long exchange with Dr. Venema.
Here is a link to part 1 of that exchange from almost a couple years ago now between Buggs and Venema which I think ranks among the most prolific exchanges between a pair of people in the history of this forum. It’s a little like someone asking what earth is like and me referring you to an expansive set of encyclopedias. Sorry I can’t do better, but that thread (and it’s only part 1!) probably provides a wealth of links to other places/people who (if not Dr. Buggs themselves) may have knowledgeable association with him. You can also use the magnifying glass search tool in this forum to search out all mentions of “Buggs”, which should get you to places of interest.
My main impression from all that exchange is that Dr. Buggs was eager to press Dr. Venema for some sort of retraction of a specific claim Venema had made in his book, and that seemed to be Buggs’ single-minded pursuit for an amazingly long time - almost as if his only ambition in life was to score some badly needed point against Dennis for some constituency of his own. But that is an unfair summary if left by itself as I recall Buggs making quite a few points that roused good discussion and clarification from Dennis that most all of us benefited watching from the sidelines. I don’t recall Buggs ever outright denying common descent even though I’m sure participants here eagerly pushed him to come clean on that. Perhaps like Behe, those things are just accepted quietly in the background but not pushed because they don’t wish to antagonize their main fan base. Again - these are my hasty recollections without going back to review that (now 2-year old) fire hose of exchanges myself. So please don’t take my word for it without much more serious inquiry.
[I think it fair to say that Dr. Buggs established himself as a worthy critic of various facile arguments, characterizations, or confidences in established evolutionary mechanisms / timelines that are often put forward by evolutionary enthusiasts. So whatever his acceptance of the events themselves, he probably has valued street-cred among evolutionary critics - at least at that time.]