Most of the time, there is usually no "most meritorious", just something that is elsewhere on the "trade-off space" than the person speaking would like. I usually dismiss everybody who so snidely and arrogantly dismisses results of other people's work(e.g. the OP article), like there was some _obviously_ correct solution that the people who worked on the widely accepted solution were too stupid or malicious to choose. They could not possibly have had other priorities or doing their best to get something working acceptably in a complex ecosystem with no central control, no! They are just dumber than you (or just plain malicious).