I think you're missing a third group of PHP haters that's actually a majority: those who've used PHP, sometimes extensively, and built up a backlog of "this is stupid" bits in their head about it. They don't have deeply reflective reasons or a strong theoretical basis for hating it, they've just suffered with it for a good while, found some better alternative, and are now sceptical that any amount of improvement will be able to outweigh the friction they "know" will be there if they try to come back.

So the anti-PHP feeling for this group is broad but shallow. Here's what I think is interesting: JavaScript is here right now. Like PHP, it's incredibly popular, almost mandatory to know in some degreee, and using it for any length of time causes one to build up a catalog of "WTF?" and workarounds and "use this library instead" and a constant churn of "it's great if you use <some framework or conceptual approach> on top of it".

I used PHP a lot, and found it quite pleasant with Laravel, but the latent pool of distaste means I'll never go back. I work heavily with JS now, and can feel that wide puddle of "why do I have to put up with this?" spreading, even while other parts are really good.

I don't know how you overcome this, broadly. Perhaps it doesn't matter, because I think this group (and I'm part of it) blows with the wind more than most, and if the winds shift back, we'll probably come along.