I don’t like this either. I think maybe people are more used to this in the US, but I personally think that if you can’t be objective you need to be more humble in your communication.

… of course Coke can trash-talk Pepsi and vice-versa… but if I’m making a technical assessment of competing products or software platforms I get a bad feeling of anyone using those sales tactics.

Yeah, but who we protecting? Don't readers want a rigorous debate? Are we pirates or diplomats?

In Germany there are, for examples, rules regarding comparative advertising. Way stronger than anything the US has. Therefore we are not used to competitors trash talking other brands in ads.

So I am in the same boat when it comes to SEO/content marketing like this. It is advertising, nothing more.

And personally, when evaluating products, I agree with OP. I also like the people behind a product to be a bit more humble when comparing themselves to competitors.

That can be true, especially for objective facts, but I would expect such criticism to be biased to the point of unreliability - "We taste better than x (according to our staff)", "we have higher quality than x (at double the price)", "we’re like x but cheaper (and we have nearly 20% of their features)". And even then, as an input there can be value, but it's helpful to at least know that it's coming from a competitor so I can anticipate the bias.