That discussion may have been true for steel steer tubes, but I don't recall one in regards to full carbon steer tubes. Santana knocking was mostly about them introducing yet another proprietary spec (like 160mm spacing) with the straight tubed 1 1/4" steerer. A most troublesome part was the 1 1/4" upper which limited stem and headset choice, plus sourcing a road fork was pretty much restricted to Santana's versions. As more and more mtn and CX bikes were built with beefier front ends, the stem and headset sourcing problems became less of an issue. Current, widely available fork choices mostly provide a standard 1 1/8" upper and a variety of lower widths to suit the usage type.

We had something of a head to head comparison when moving from a 1 1/8 AlphaQ fork on a previous Calfee to the 1.5" tapered ENVE on the current one. Sure the blades also effect the feel, but FWIW, the difference in flex (or lack of on the ENVE) was enormous. Word has it that 3T forks have better vibration absorption.

That observation is completely in line with what I learned from riding two identically equipped Specialized Tarmac models, the SL3 and SL4 that had a different fork steerer & head tube spec. The SL3 was built with a too rigid 1.5" tapered fork front end, while the SL4 had been better tuned and uses a 1 3/8". Otherwise the forks are very near identical. The difference in ride quality between those two models is huge. They certainly proved that the 1 1/2" was overkill for a road single.

Having ridden all the above, I'm absolutely sold on full carbon forks with larger lower steer tubes and headset races to add both strength and performance. Oh yea, a higher safety margin too... if you're into that sort of thing :/ Also that there is now a much wider selection of tandem capable forks is a big plus.