A lot of people would like to think so. Reason being, The Mona Lisa is art, so is some guy throwing buckets of paint at a canvas in NYC. Some people feel comfortable with that situation. Everything is Valid.
The term "everything is valid" could easily be substituted with "everything is subjective" and opinion based, which it is in art and as we see quite often in this hobby. Where I think things tend to get confused is when some of the creative marketing of audio products (not to mention that in other industries) foresakes the very obvious technical and engineering explanations in favor of "audiophile approved" superlatives, adjectives, and general marketing spin.
We saw a good example of this earlier in the thread when transformers were positioned to create a tube like sound. Turns out there was a very good technical explanation of this. However, would that technical explanation be considered a good marketing move when promoting a product?
I'll get to the negative feedback thing later. Suffice it to say I think there is a place for it and it does show up in tube designs as well from some very reputable manufacturers.
