"coupled with a complete lack of _hard evidence_ to back up their views"

Didn't Casey Muratori write a proof of concept windows terminal to highlight Microsoft's substandard implementation? And Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade+ developing his own programming language and funding the development of a game. Seems like they are backing their views.

I can see why you would think that about Jon Blow, though I disagree. But Casey? He has a number of thorough videos with plenty of evidence, and has never struck me as arrogant.