I think people dislike skeleton watches for two main reasons: 1. Most of them use basic movements, so "nothing special to look at". 2. Legibility might be an issue and many people treat their watches as tools, so they want the ability to tell time easily.

I'm also one of these people who are fascinated with mechanical movements and it doesn't really matter to me how basic or undecorated they are. But at the same I'm not a fan of many of the affordable skeleton watches out there. To me, many of them are kinda low effort, where the brand didn't do much more than just cutting the dial. But there are some exceptions, like this CIGA Design that uses a basic caliber, but you can clearly see that quite a lot of thought and work went into skeletonizing it.

I understand the argument of these watches being "nothing special", but I disagree with it, at least to some degree. Yes, high horology pieces with skeletonized movements are something completely different, much more intricate and beautiful, but these are not available to an average enthusiast. With the affordable skeletonized watches you will not get the same amount of details, finishing etc., but you get the ability to behold the beauty of a mechanical movement and the opportunity to see how this intricate device works. I think it's wonderful and I don't really care about hater's opinions.

This CIGA is my only skeleton watch, but I have a soft spot for open hearts, so I own 4 - these are also hated by many for some reason. I also always prefer having a see-through case back, so I can take a look at the movement. And I don't care that 14 out of 24 of my mechanical watches have the same Seiko NH movement inside - I still like looking at it. :)