Here is the thing, you give an item a bad review, and you implicitly insult people who went out and bought one. They get upset, regardless how spot on, or perhaps even generous the review, and they will not renew their subscription. Subscriptions plummet with every negative review, which also lowers advertising revenue because the advertisers want a large audience, and pay based upon magazine sales figures.
When TAS and Stereophile were add free, they had more flexibility but still, their income stream was based upon magazine sales, but in their case, magazine sales only. So even then there was an automatic disincentive to degrade bad gear.
I have owned and heard many of their top tier gear, and have found that much of it sucks. While I rarely ever buy based upon the clown posse's reviews, I thankfully did allow them to talk me into buying a Schiit Audio Yggdrasil, and that was a game changer, but it was also, I believe, an exception.
It was such a drastic improvement that I have since completely revamped my stereo. I went with a Schiit Freya for a time, but reluctantly followed the advice of a former Freya owner and bought a Don Sachs DS2 preamp. I honestly expected it to be at best a nominal improvement, but it wasn't. Mind you, synergy does come into play here, had I had say Vandersteen speakers, I may very well have been unable to distinguish many of the differences which I heard.
So too with individual reviews on line. Ignorance is a part of the human condition, if not we wouldn't bother with reviews in the first place. The gear that I own is the most neutral I can find at a price that I believe that I can afford. Others would call neutral gear bright, and I suppose bright gear, very bright. So ferreting through reviews of any type is fraught with problems. It's a shame that we don't have audio studios strategically located throught the nation with large assortments of gear that we could listen to in a variety of acoustically different rooms.