You don't have to go back to school, but in reality, if you want to make informed objective evaluations, you simply must know how things work. You can't just rely on 3rd party BS. Would you trust a reviewer with your wife on a desert island for a month? If not, why would you trust a reviewer to fill your head full of marketing BS? Back when I was 14, 24 years ago, I used to put lots of weight on reviews. But the more hand on experience I got, the less weight I put on them. All reviews are is simply a platform for advertising. They know their target market, and they say the words that will most likely appeal to the target market.
That's what I'm saying. I don't trust reviewers, and I don't trust marketing BS. I'm almost exactly the same age as you, and you're not the only one who's grown out of that stuff.
But there has to be a middle ground between that and knowing the ins and outs of every individual circuit. And there is, wether you like it or not. If only tech-heads could be objectivists, this place would be a desert.