Sudoku was always a meditative thing for me. It’s impossible not to win so long as you pay attention. Optimizing solutions seems contrary to the point to me.
Puzzles in commercial collections don't usually have that problem, but those from other sources sometimes do.
Solvers also make for a nice craft exercise, as here. Simple but not trivial, you can approach them in a lot of different ways and thereby work through different techniques or constraints you mean to explore.
I would argue that puzzles in commercial collections are more likely to have that problem than ones made freely available by hobbyists, as commercial enterprises inevitably cut corners on things like labour costs for an actual human setter.
I have seen dozens of commercial puzzle games and applications that do not make any attempt to verify the (auto-generated) puzzles as solvable, but I don't think I've ever had the same problem on a site like LMD.
I enjoy running simulation after simulation after simulation, studying possible outcomes and optimising everything. Everyone is different :)
While I myself found an opportunity to reply to the GP and didn't down vote them, their comment only engaged with the article in a shallow way and only then, seemingly, to just dismiss the concept of solver altogether.
It wasn't a offensive comment, but it didn't really contribute to the site in the way many people digging into deep technical walkthroughs like this expect to see.
Some downvotes weren't guaranteed, but they're not surprising and they're probably helping new readers stay engaged with more topical and technical alternatives.
It's not the end of the world to get a few downvotes, and it's almost never personal. It certainly isn't here.
If have to ask: What's rewarding about only having your viewpoint reinforced?