I understand why someone would presume that to be the case, but from my own observations I don't see the situation as that dire.
You're right, it wasn't terribly balanced--though it was supposed to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek...
In fairness, as well as acquiring false ideas and thinking that later had to be dispensed with or modified, I learnt a great deal from the "hi-fi magazines" back in the day--certainly basics from "don't buy a mini system from the local electronics emporium, it will suck", to frequency response, impedance, and so on. And, dare I say, the even the more "flowery-language" reviews at least got one thinking about listening critically and provided some sort of tentative vocabulary to use.
And if you read something like the DIY Supplement of Hi-Fi World magazine, it would even have reviews of technical books--they were always recommending "The Art of Electronics." (Yes, the one by Horowitz and Hill.)
I've seen some good convergence in subjective descriptions in the sound of a number of speakers from reviewers.
I rarely read "subjective" (really for want of a better word) reviews anymore. When I did, in the 1990's, I'm pretty sure that one magazine would declare a certain product the "amplifier of the year" or "CD player of the year" and, seemingly eons later, it would be reviewed in another magazine that gave a distinctly middling view. The fact that the manufacturer of said "product of the year" always placed prominently positioned full-page adverts in the magazine couldn't possibly have anything to do with it....?
There were certainly products that were "seminal" or substantially different enough that (my distant recollection of) the reviews was that they were more consistent.
In the mid-1990's, the Meridian 565 (or Lexicon DC-1) were the only games in town for what they did. And, obviously, one could point to a relatively unique product like the Quad Electrostatics.
In the "hi-fi press" as a whole, though, the vast majority of reviews were of commodity "me too" products that weren't distinguished in any way. The magazines that bothered to perform measurements (and publish them) would sometimes "dismiss" a product based on very bad engineering.
One particularly good example was a review of the Mission 751's in Hi-Fi Choice. It didn't sound very good, and the measured performance looked "odd." In a follow-up, it was said that Mission had subsequently "discovered" the supplier of the bass/mid driver had changed its parameters, or at least the bass/mid drivers in the review sample were way out of spec. Mission said that they had resolved the problem and invited Hi-Fi Choice to pick a random sample from their warehouse. Which, apparently, they did, and subsequently re-reviewed the product. Quite what that says about Mission's QA process at the time, well...
Another nice example was the Sony CDP-715E CD player, which Hi-Fi Choice found had the best measured performance of any CD player they'd reviewed--they gave it the highest recommendation. It retailed for the "beer budget" (as Paul Messenger would say) price of £200. (Of course one could be cynical and wonder if there hadn't been a squabble with one of Sony's competitors, but AFAIK Sony really did make some of the best delta-sigma DAC chips then.)
Perhaps it's worth mentioning that Hi-Fi Choice did--and maybe they still do--publish "group reviews" that made use of blind tests with a panel of listeners. Albeit, I'm not sure how well controlled they were, in terms of protocol (not double-blind?), level matching, etc.; and quite often whoever wrote up the tests would "overrule" the panel with their own opinion!
OK, enough waffling on about distant memories--LOL. Yes, as I said, I think you're right that a more balanced appraisal would be fair. But these days I'd go for an engineering approach to the whole system. For instance, with loudspeakers I'd first want to see the polar response and so on (and the fact that the typical bass/mid with separated dome tweeter design is not too good in that respect cuts out a large chunk of the products on the market!)
I used to do a bit of reviewing and have some pals who still do it.
I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but in fairness to yourself, I don't think I've ever read any of your reviews.
And yes, thanks to the Internet at large, including forums, it's down to the individual to seek out good information out of the embarrassment of riches scattered amongst the weeds. Where would we be without it?!