Reviewers will invent officious definitions from the armchairs in their crappy listening space containing their free gear they barely know how to turn on.
Reviewers generally are broke. They can't afford to buy the gear they review at normal prices. In fact, a reviewer confessed this fact to me at RMAF last year. He said that he's a reviewer simply to gain access to the gear he otherwise wouldn't be able to acquire.
My point: There is no accommodation price for hiring a contractor to build a dedicated listening space. Ive never heard of an acoustician trading their services for a positive review. Ive never heard of RPG trading Modex Plates for a positive review. Do people ever see the 1/6 smoothed octave frequency response of Atkinson or Fremer's rooms? And these are some of the well compensated reviewers. Think how bad it is in the rest of the looters' rooms.
This guy has never heard of Keith Johnson.
As someone who makes a full time living about electronics, and more than likely, soon in another hobby, I agree with much of what you say.
However, hacks who you characterize as "looters" are in the great, great, minority.
Reviewers come in all colors. There are a bunch who are independently wealthy and don't have to work day jobs, so accommodations are not
really a big incentive. There are those who have a true passion. There are those who are experienced writers and have an interest in audio.
And...also in reverse. Not a single Stereophile writer has a journalism degree. That may be because "reviewing" of any kind is not really journalism.
Any way, there are reviewers who REALLY do care, and want to serve the reader. They really do. There ARE, ego driven reviewer centric writers
whose only agenda is to convert people to their way of thinking and blather on.
For the record, I had what I think was a decent Naim/ARC/Harbeth/Transparent system I bought at FULL retail before writing my first professional review, for which I got paid. I also spent my own money, with no break, on getting my room treated, and soundproofed. Mind you, it is not perfect by any stretch, but it is better than before. My second system, is in an untreated room, but sounds very good to me.
As far as what I agree with..sure there are reviewers whose rooms are a joke, who are in it for the access to dealer pricing, and because they are sycophants of the industry. But not all. Not even close.
Most established and widely read reviewers have significant resources invested. Of course there are two very big exceptions which is of public record.