Oh dear, how did I come across this? A bit late to the party but let's see.
I think like the downfall here is that people tend to overanalyze things. Blogs are generally just hobbies and many people just move on. ANN on the other hand is a business. I vaguely recall the Nihon Review. Some of the reviews were decent, others I disagreed with, but the main crux of it was in the discssuons. It just seems to me people moved on; I don't really see the need for too much speculation.
I don't really like to participate in discussions where people can't defend themselves, but it was inevitable that certain SoL shows would just not be critic friendly. And to be fair that era was a time of transition and somewhat volatile so anime would go in and out of people's tastes. Many people simply never adapted and their favorite medium is just not the same. I don't think that's necessarily wrong.
But I don't think their opinions are necessarily invalid, regardless of whatever convoluted approach they might have taken, unless they were taking their opinions towards other people. Funny social media has gotten much worse in this regards in the mobs that appear.
However, I certainly don't like bad faith reviews and critics. The moment they start citing falsehoods and delibrately dismissing things in plain site, I have a problem. A lot of people seem to hate shows through second hand knowledge (eg my friends told me a show supports slavery; it must be bad!).
And yes, I agree with relentlessflame that there were definitely a lot of pretentious things going on where an amazing amount of obfuscation was an excuse for insults. Admittingly I was borderline, but I never meant for too much trouble. It even destroyed an entire community sadly.
But like I've always said, smart people can like dumb shows, and just because you like smart shows, doesn't mean you are smart. In the end there is much more to entertainment, and what purpose it serves.
And hey, at least you didn't feel targeted for liking ecchi shows; people (especially some parts of reddit/twitter) will treat you as the scum of the earth.