Maybe Hofstadter hadn't chosen the best metaphor, but criticizing it from the point that it contains too many irrelevant details isn't unlike dismissing the use

Maybe Hofstadter hadn't chosen the best metaphor, but criticizing it from the point that it contains too many irrelevant details isn't unlike dismissing the use of apples for teaching counting numbers (what happens if I bite an apple, what if an apple is larger than another one and so on).