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No one IMO earns the right to rip others apart like that in a community art forum just because they use a  particular software application.   It would be like a teacher berating her students for knowing less than her.

Not really, because it's a teacher's job to educate her students and nurture their hopes. Those aforementioned "elite" aren't there to do a public service.
But if you want to use the school analogy, they're more like the playground bullies. ;-)

I'm not so sure it's only the wannabe elite though. I've seen some rather highly-accomplished 3D people ripping Poser and Poser users.