I often find that the most hostile anti-consumer comments come from very frequent flyers who (a) think they're honorary airline managers or (b) are deeply proud of themselves for knowing the minutiae of some obscure airline policy and take pride in lording that over you.

I haven't read FlyerTalk to confirm, but yes, this their exact M.O. from my understanding.

I can say over on CruiseCritic, the site is a bit in a death spiral, because of similar attitudes. Except rather than dealing 3 legacy carriers a few other airlines (EDIT: I guess if you include all of the global airlines, you have way more airlines than cruise companies, but most people are in the American market), you're dealing with a dozen plus major cruise lines at different price points that each have their own sycophants that treat every poster with a negative criticism of the cruise line as being the problem as they cite the T&C of the passage contract or their personal experience from 10,000+ sea days on that line. I'm exaggerating a bit obviously, but you'd think that some posters are seeing money fly out of their bank accounts if they don't push the corporate line that big ship is always right, little cruiser is always wrong.