Blink, the board can request an audience with any employee, and...

Blink, the board can request an audience with any employee, and other executives sometimes do have presentations to the board, but not a routine activity or casual conversation situation with them. Even where executive presentations are frequent, the executives tend to defer to the CEO for prickly board questions.

Instead, for efficiency, consistency, and respect to the CEO, the board relies on the CEO for information about management practices, current situation, etc. There is a fair bit of research in strategic management journals on board reliance on the CEO for management information (not all good -- CEOs tend to be selective in information dissemination, as allegedly occurred recently with the OZ sandalwood company).

The answers at the meeting that you describe are a long throw from the issue of whether the former (and soon again to be) CEO was transparent or cooperative with the board. I think there is reasonable grounds to be believe that all board members believed the CEO's conduct was difficult, at best. Whether this is reason for removal or could undermine PPS's long-term success is a matter of debate (and preferably search for better evidence).