“I have, on many occasions, praised (sometimes lavishly) a particular puzzle but it seems the custom here is to always praise which I find quite bizarre”
Indeed, you have praised puzzles and/or particular clues recently, but the opposite of “to always praise” is not “burning down a crossword”. That’s where you go wrong. Even if a crossword is not fully up our street, “we” always try to be aware of the fact that a setter wrote his brainchild in order to entertain us.
Many Guardian crosswords do not entertain you, probably because of not being challenging enough. For you, that is. What about the man in the tube, what about the woman during lunch? Different people have different needs.

“When there is criticism it seems to be restricted to minute details about one definition(a chance to show off personal expertise) which as I have explained is not of great interest to me. My reaction is to a puzzle as a whole ie as a piece of work by a journalist”.
I usually see crosswords as a whole too [although, as I said before, sometimes one single clue can make my day] and in that respect a crossword may feel good or perhaps not that good. But trashing it is normally one step too far for me. And, unfortunately, you have shown to be quite good at that.
And I am not sure whether a setter should be compared with a journalist but one may of course have different ideas about that.

RCW, I do understand your view on crosswords a lot better than a while ago. But you also must realise that what you call a “challenge” might be different from what other solvers think that is.

However, a very interesting topic is your view on definitions.
Just like Paul B, I would certainly not eschew a discussion on that.
Allusions? Vague? Not precise enough? A bit loose? I know what s/he means, but …..
Where should one draw the line?
Perhaps, hopefully, this gets a follow-up.
I fear not, though.

English may be your second language but you seem far more capable than I of expressing your thoughts. English is my first and only language but I often struggle to compose a sentence that reflects how I feel.

I will not comment further, as your words in #34 say more than I ever could.

I should also thank you for continuing the revelations with regard to your proposed ‘allusive definitions’. I’m not sure I’m quite there yet, mind you, but perhaps the relevant light in my dim old cerebrum will click on as and when it’s ready.

It does explain the discontentment you showed in many of your posts so far.
What it does not explain is the disdain for crosswords that do not meet your requirements.
Implicitely it also shows disdain for solvers who look at crosswords in a different way.
Today you said “This was a travesty of a Prize crossword”.
Why should you use these, in fact, insulting words towards an IMO respected setter?
You must realise that this was probably a “travesty of a Prize crossword” to you.
While I must realise that it was you who said it, you must realise that your verdict is not the ultimate truth, let alone the verdict of the average solver.
We live in a country of free speech, but it is not on to make your own view on crosswords so important that it may even cause damage to the people who set and solve them.
But to be fair to you, your recent comments at this place have been somewhat more lo-fi.

The essential thing is though, as Eileen rightly says “As we’ve said so often about this site, isn’t it great that we’re all different?” (with a smiley) – words that could be said by me (in fact, I have said them on earlier occasions at fifteensquared).

RCW, your criterion is apparently the level of difficulty.
Well, mine is completely different.

We are all different anyway. You are one who “spent several years in his early twenties failing to finish Ximenes but was delighted when to post off your first success”. I appreciate that very much, but it is not the world I come from.
I started doing crosswords only three years ago, I am non-Brit and therefore I most certainly look at clues in a different way than you do. You read them in your first language, I read them in my second language. Perhaps therefore I look more at them from a setters (ie constructional) point of view, being not always familiar with idiom-related expressions.
For me (and many others) the surface reading is very important. Even a simple clue can be so well formulated that it makes my day. Writing a really good clue is like writing poetry. The acclaimed “I say nothing” for EGO (one by Enigmatist) must surely not be up your street because of being too easy, just like my own “Well, of course” for SOURCE. But both also so extremely natural. Can you enjoy these?

You also say “As for themes, I really don’t care. Even when it is Shakespeare I feel that scientist challenge that it won’t beat me (even though I decided years ago that there is nothing as humourless as a WS comedy)”.
There you have a point. In the end, I do not care either.

Any theme will do for me as long as the cluing is all right. Here I probably differ from Eileen and others. Elton John may be not everyone’s cup of tea [but he wasn’t that bad in the early seventies – in fact, he was quite good then, IMO], but why can’t he be a theme for a crossword? Don’t tell me “Elton John” is a modern thing. There is a world that goes beyond Shakespeare [whose dialogues I find at times Pythonesque ], composers [Elton John not one of them?] and dead poets. If that puzzle in the Indy (by eimi himself) on Elbow (yes, Elbow) would have been a Guardian one – well, I am not sure what would have happened.

The reason I found this crossword too easy was, that I found most of the themed clues from the enumeration after deciphering ROCKET MAN early on. Well, I would say, that can happen. Someone not familiar to Elton John’s songs (which I find a bit odd, btw) would have different thoughts. But then there’s Wikipedia to check – and why not?
One is never too old to learn that there’s a world beyond one’s horizon.
[exactly the reason why I never complain about unfamiliar words in Pasquale/Bradman’s puzzles]

Aren’t we all different?
Yes, we are.
So, let’s be careful with right/wrong and good/bad.

I have his book ‘The Art of the Crossword’ as well as a collection of his crosswords in a paperback.