The degree to which non-technical people weigh in on very technical topics in Bitcoin has always surprised me.

It's not like people go around getting pissy with brain surgeons about the merits of a new procedure, or start yelling at particle physicists about the proper way to aim a neutrino...

What makes these folks think that they have any idea about the tradeoffs inherent in complex crypto-systems?

I think more devs (especially the bitcoin core devs) would do well to simply ignore the noise, most of the time. Only give your valuable time to people who have shown the proof of work and bring intellectual honesty to the conversation.