Just wanna say, I think my posts on the matter were awesome and reasonable.
So long as it's made clear that the harpies' reputation is largely based on hearsay and rumor, I think it's fine. It also creates a lot of ways for dealing with that potential misconception.
Let's face it, harpies are a somewhat abrasive, unpredictable people at times. I could easily understand how they could be misconstrued as rude or imposing, even without taking their language into account. Personally I think a human-sized harpy would be a fun friend once you got used to her, and accepted that she's probably going to dominate the conversation a good bit of the time, and poke fun at you here and there. Just a boisterous kind of people... which can sometimes be misunderstood as rude or abrasive.