I don't know about figure bashing, but vendor bashing isn't too friendly, either. :P C'mon, man. Be fair. Lots of vendors create great products and are responsive to their customers' reasonable feedback. They may not always make what you want exactly how you want it, but then that's true of every industry. Painting every vendor with the same broad brush is unreasonable. It's this soft of hyperbolic language, I think, that upsets people.

Edit: I don't personally know many vendors. But I have spoken to a few from time to time, and the impression I get is that most work very hard to create the best products they can, especially given the enormous time constraints they experience. They are overjoyed when someone likes their work, and are devastated when people don't. And frankly for what we pay them, and the ease with which customers can dismiss MONTHS of their work over something trivial -- all but the outright fraudulent ones deserve a lot more appreciation.

Thank-you for pointing this out (not many do) and I agree... Vendors should get way more appreciation than they do. The Figure and Vendor bashing... and program bashing.. have gotten way way out of hand and really needs to stop... it doesn't do anything or accomplish anything but to drive people out of the community and destroy peoples joy in their work. There's no good reason or need for it.