In my experience watching survivor, when a returning player that previously got a positive edit gets a negative edit on the season that they return, its not as out of the blue as it might originally seem. Usually, there were points when that negative side of their personality did appear on their original season, and it just wasn't heavily focused on.
For example, Andrew Savage was the same cliquish douchebag in Pearl Islands that he was in Cambodia, but he was portrayed as the heroic leader of the misfit tribe, that got screwed over by an unfair twist, when really everyone else had to deal with the same twist, but he hung himself with his high school like behavior.
Ozzy was originally shown to be the same douchebag in Cook Islands that he would be in his subsequent seasons, ostracizing Billy, and even doing a rant similar to his free agent rant in South Pacific when his ally Cecelia was voted out, but circumstances, specifically the mutiniy, put him in the position of heroic underdog
James showed the same disrespect to PeighGhee and Eliza that he showed to Stephenie, its just that for some reason the fans didn't mind in those instances.
There are likely other instances of this as well, these are just the ones I could think of right off hand
With Peih Gee she was throwing Challenges trying to get him out. I also heard she was pretty disrespectful at camp sometimes.
I've also heard the same with Eliza. Which at times you see it, it's just her constant paranoia.
I do agree about Stephanie though. Didn't have to go all super sayan on her