To be honest, the reviews on ASR somewhat of a joke. The way Amir treats his measurements as gospel, his hostile towards valid criticisms of his tests, his dismissal of said valid critisims, and the sensationalist nature of a lot of his conclusions when it comes to products. Myself, I see it as not very genuine. I think I'm in the minority here in thinking this though.
Whatever. There's still a lot of good to be had from here, and being here, so I usually set all of that aside. It's easy to turn a blind eye from it. And even if I wanted to voice my lone voice of dissent, it would just get drowned out by 500 parrots all screeching the same thing.
As long as the technical reviews are interactive, with any and all members being able to comment, it won't change.
You've got one man making the measurements and depending on whether the device tests well or poorly, comments and the thread direction go from worshiping the product to a complete and utter pile-on demolition of a brand. It's funny to watch sometimes.
If the technical reviews were presented as professionally written, objective, locked thread reports and a separate discussion thread on the review was fully interactive, the reviews could stand alone without being filled up with garbage. If the review has errors or measurement mistakes, they are corrected and duly noted in the review thread itself. The discussion threads can go off on whatever tangent they want and arguments can happen there. It would be a cleaner user-experience IMO. Eventually, the discussion threads will run out of steam and become dormant, but the review threads will still stand, hopefully with quality reports, and minor updates, notes or errata, and be a useful reference.
I can see Amir needs to defend his methods and measurements, even in the face of criticism, be it valid or not. It's also not remotely a sign of weakness to admit you are wrong sometimes. But he also can see his genuine hard work get watered down by hijacked threads and petty infighting. Must get frustrating.
That said, I agree with much of your post and thanks for having the guts to post it.