Thank you for sharing your well-researched insightful opinion that clearly reflects many decades of experience in the industry. It's exactly for comments like this I come to Hacker News every day, I feel like I learn new things all the time.

(Sorry for the rant)

Taking issue with the requirements is a perfectly legitimate technical complaint and you see lots of people complain when some new web application is flash-only.

There's some hyper-sensitivity going on here today.

Hyper-reactions are always telling. My bet is that these people feel somewhat threatened. The fact some Microsoft users and enthusiasts feel that way here is, itself, very interesting.