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For a competing anecdote, most of my friends who've read the books say they ended up skimming most of the Bombadil section and found it quite boring.

I suspect Bombadil is disproportionately popular among the people who like to critique what they read compared to the general public.

For me it wasn't so much him as all of the songs IIRC. Once I started just skimming the songs/poetry he became much less annoying (I'm horrible at deciphering meter and it just trips me up). The first words out of my mouth upon seeing the first film was "they left out Bombadil".

Had been looking forward to hearing one of those songs.

I didn't really like him either. He clashed with the overall feeling of Fellowship while at the same time breaking its logic. If he just clashed, he'd be comic relief. If he just broke the logic, he'd be a mystery wrapped in an enigma. But by being both at the same time, he becomes the big-lipped alligator moment of the whole series.

I don't see any reason to think the author dislikes Bombadil! If anything, they'd have to like him quite a bit to research his background and come up with this sort of wild theory about him.