It seems they identify so closely with dotnet that any perceived criticism is taken as a personal slight. It's the only thing that explains such a rabid response to a reasonable observation.
This can be seen through other issues in the industry but is particularly felt in bad teams - social cohesion resides on a set of commonly agreed upon beliefs within a group and the worse the team is the more such beliefs are at odds with reality, and all I've been seeing in the past year is HN slipping more and more into this when it comes to programming.