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Aren't people allowed to have their own opinions?

Absolutely

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If criticism of any current implementation of any construct becomes off-limits is automatically classed as "denigrating"

Without judging the particular instance or the discussion itself, here is the definition of the world "ridiculous": Ridiculous: adjective. Deserving or inviting derision or mockery; absurd. I am quite sure that there a better ways to make a technical argument without describing the target of your objections as "deserving derision or mockery". You could say "I think the current state of X is quite painful" or "I think this is not acceptable" or "I think this is a really bad idea" or "I think that this is going to make a lot of things really bad" or "I really don't like this" or "I deeply think that this was one of the worst decisions". None of those statements are denigrating. Calling something "ridiculous", is, by design, denigrating. Not the worst way to denigrate but a way to denigrate, nevertheless. Rgds, Jossua