^^ This. The most difficult thing for a human to do, is see reality as it actually is.
The other big factor is that as humans, part of our baseline code is to be hyper-territorial tribalistic murder monkeys. People wrap up their identity around their gear choices, and fly that as a flag of tribal affiliation. They experience critique of that gear as a painful hit to their personal identity - like you're calling them a lesser person, with evidence.
Then they and the others in their tribe witnessing it get all tribal and murder-monkey, with the internet version of that being forum dumpster fires.