My answer for why this may happen, conditional on this actually being generalizable, is that people have surprisingly good intuitions that something is off or deserves praise, but when forced to explain, the brain makes up a plausible reason, instead of the true reason that something is wrong.
For those who don't know, the maxim of criticism that game designers/art people use in their responses to criticism is roughly the following:
"If you get a negative reaction on it's own, that's evidence that there's a problem."
"If customers give any reasons why or solutions to the problem, ignore that criticism."
Is this generally true of criticism against anything, and if so, why do you think this happens?