I am also shocked at all the negative reactions. I really, really liked this one. But I tend to like most of the EP stories, and not have much in the way of strong negative feelings towards them. (Exceptions being Acepheous Dreams and that steampunk story from last fall). After reading some of the commentary about this episode I feel like a bit of a simpleton. While listening I just don't nitpick that much. I think a lot of the people that liked it said so briefly while those with negative feelings felt the need to write more to explain their points of view.
For the record, I can comment just as volubly on pieces I have loved as on pieces I disdain. Often someone beats me to the punch on the specific parts I love (*cough* eytanz *cough*), however, and I try not to post too much in the 'me too' vein, so that may affect the balance of my posts.
I also don't post in an attempt to throwdown intellectually, or make anyone feel like a simpleton. OTOH, I refuse to apologize for the breadth of my vocabulary, or my expressions of critical thought. Been there, done that, quite finished, thank you. I post primarily because I'm interested, either in the stories themselves or in the reactions to them (and I include my own reaction to stories in the set of things I find interesting).
I have a strong lit crit background, and analyzing stories is part of the fun of it for me. I can enjoy stories at face value, without analysis, sure, but I get deeper enjoyment out of things I can take apart and think about, and I get the deepest enjoyment out of stories that engage me *both* intellectually and emotionally. I am not best pleased by fiction that requires turning my brain off to enjoy it. The desire to deconstruct and examine the parts is a basic geek drive, and I'm surprised to find it scorned as 'nitpicking' and/or 'missing the point' (in another thread).
Your statement that you don't nitpick while listening is valid for most listeners, I believe. I see fewer flaws in stories that engage me than in ones that fail to suck me in. Debra Doyle, at the Viable Paradise workshop, calls this phenomenon "people don't count rivets on a moving train". In stories that I don't like, often the train just isn't moving fast enough, and I start counting rivets, and noticing they're not quite right. This is still, as far as I'm concerned, an error on the author's part. They have, or should have, control of the pacing of the story.
That said, I don't think slow train motion was the problem for me in this story. As I believe I stated upthread, the story is fine from a technical execution standpoint (unlike Friction, which I think had logical holes big enough to swallow small suns, which I perhaps wouldn't have noticed had things moved along at a better pace). After thinking (and posting) about it, I think it's of a type of story that just doesn't connect with me. When I tried to think of other stories of its type, I came up with Eugie Foster's Penguin Balloon story (what was it called?), which I also hated but at the time I heard it, I felt that was maybe because of the baby-voiced reading it got (though I usually like Mur's readings). And it's not that I hate Eugie's stuff, either, because her Pseudopod story "Oranges, Lemons and Thou Beside Me" is in my top three favorite Pseudopod's EVER. So, in essence, my 'nitpicking' is more like my exploration, out loud and in public, of elements in storytelling that work (or don't) for me. Apparently, toys are a hard sell for me, and the author will have to work hard against my prejudices to make me like a story intended for adults with a toy as protagonist (I can think of plenty of examples I like in children's lit.). Now I know more about what I like in stories, and that should help me find more stuff I like and avoid stuff that I don't like. To me this is a good thing, achieved by my thinking critically about why I didn't like this particular story.