[derefr]

I think there's a No True Scotsman effect at work here: "meeting" is the general abstract superclass used to refer to "people talking at a table." However, "meeting" has some very useful subclasses--for example, debate and negotiation. Real things get done in debates and negotiations. But people don't think of those at "meetings", per se, so "meeting" gets stuck with all the negative connotations and none of the positive ones. (In est, a useful meeting is not a True Meeting; it's something else.)