I'm looking at this sort of thing in a big picture sort of sense. People have always and will always bitch about things, especially things they supposedly love.

Take the Star Wars Prequels for example. Easy target there. God, so many things wrong with those films. Why can't we return to the glory days of the flawless original trilogy?

Except people did bitch about those movies endlessly. There is just no public record of it. I remember my dad telling me that he remembered a lot of people thinking the C3P0 was way too annoying and over the top in The Empire Strikes Back. There was also a time where people debated ENDLESSLY if Darth Vader telling Luke he was his father was the truth or an outright lie.

Return of the Jedi got the same treatment. Oh sure, everyone knows that the Ewoks were complained about, but not everyone swallowed the movie going, "btw Leia is Luke's sister. Yeah, just go with it, it makes the Vader/Emperor/Luke confrontation at the end carry more weight." One of the complaints of The Phantom Menace is that there is way too much going on during the films climax (Jedi Battle/Space Battle/Gungan Battle/Naboo Battle). Though not nearly as strong, there were people who felt the climax of RotJ had too much going on and screwed with the pacing.

Not trying to down Star Wars or whatever. I'm just saying that while it was very cool and amusing to read these comments, they hardly surprised me (partly because I was around for this sort of thing). It just goes to show that some times the test of time makes people reflect on things differently, as well.