[chipsy]

When I see dismissals I look for a particular kind of fallacy, which this is an example of: Reasoning backwards to support the opinion. "This tool is unknown to me and their claimed improvements are dramatic" - "I would not trust an unknown tool and I do not trust their marketing efforts" - "Here's some mix of facts and expert's assumptions that supports the idea that you can't trust it."

When you're reasoning backwards you're on thin ice because it's easier to let a logical fallacy through as you start assembling your "facts and assumptions" in the rush to make your point known. You can "win the battle" (by being quick) but "lose the war" (by being wrong), and when I catch myself doing it I have to either cancel the post or put extra effort into it to make sure I have a valid argument(and often, after doing enough research, I don't, or I have gone too far outside my domain to know for sure).

Forward reasoning usually results in very straightforward critiques like "I used this but it was not appropriate for these situations..." or "it completely failed in this case..." or "it turned out to be unnecessary for the project I was on." Kevin's posts(both the initial one and follow-ups) get muddled because he has to weave together several minor points; as each successive rebuttal comes forward, so does his target, so that the final opinion remains the same, even though by the end he's reduced to "they're lying."

(A good example of a game developer who has put some serious effort and notetaking into finding ROI on a new tool is John Carmack and his forays into static analysis.)