Now that we don't have a dislike button, the comments are the only option.
Not when it's sorted by most votes. Every comment you see is "this video is so good!" even if it's not. Basically useless.
I’m guilty of this. I follow some smaller channels and I want to encourage them and to juice the algorithm a bit by giving them some engagement beyond a “like”.
Definitely don't feel guilty! It's great to support content creators you like. I'm just arguing the comments section is weighted for those types of comments, so it's a poor indicator if you'll actually like the video or not.
except when critical comments are removed
I haven't seen many critical comments anymore. Even on videos that are just completely wrong, the top comments are alway full of praise.