I disagree with the first sentence in your post. But I do agree with the rest of what you said.

A few people posted their positive experience about their BD bikes and quite a few people immediately reacted with negativity and accusations of the OP’s being Shills. I’ve posted here many times about all kinds of subjects and don’t own a BD bike but when I posted about information about Motobecane and how it came from the same factory as Specialized, Jamis, etc., a few people accused me of being a Shill. Go ahead and do a search about Motobecane and more often than not you will see people accusing owners with positive reviews and positive comments about BD to be Shills. There are posters here who won’t believe positive reviews of Motobecane bikes even when it comes from a professional testers from magazines both in print and online. The accusations that they work for BD or want BD advertisements immediately ensue. If we can’t trust reviews from owners and professional testers then where do we base our judgements on?

There are smart owners in here who understand the value of money as well as the services provided by LBS. These owners make the appropriate choices that make the best sense for them. But there are also many other people in here who are so totally blinded by brand names and elitist mentality that they feel they have to personally attack anyone who makes any positive references to BD or Motobecane because it’s not a brand name in their eyes and it is not worthy.