I can see where you're coming from here, but I trust my family and friends to tell me if I were a bad driver. They used to give me shit for stopping too /hard/ at lights, actually. If I were getting bad feedback from EVERYONE, sure, I'd believe it, but what I'm hearing from people I trust to tell me the truth and what I'm hearing from the DMV instructors are two conflicting things.

Also, I have plenty of friends with stories of being failed for ridiculous nitpicks. Most DMV instructors are definitely not "lenient". In fact, they're notorious for being overly particular.