chyeah, he's definately not the only one (btw, his name is Dean Potter, check out what else he does)in the past there have been several fatalities with free soloing (quite obvious why)
but i understand why they do it, i'm a rockclimber as well and i've free soloed several routes and its easily 10x as rewarding/thrilling as doing it on a rope, only difference is that i've done it on easy climbs that i knew were suited for it, this is just madness, most ppl climb days on that route ....
it could be compared in a way to super sketchy AK lines, big mountain skiing, 1 mistake and you're plunging down towards certain death ....