The comment about humanoid forms raising expectations comes from Rethink's hype and failure.
Rethink tried to solve manipulation and failed.
The Rethink hype video, with their cute little face on a screen.[1]
What the Rethink robot could actually do: take PC boards off a conveyor and put them in a fixture.[2] That's a routine robotic load/unload task. Like this one with Fanuc robots.[3]
The conclusion to draw from "tried and failed" certainly isn't "it's impossible and everyone should give up on the notion".