Fair enough, but I fear that most of the time hype comes from people who fear missing the latest boat, or who think it'll help them if they say stuff like XX is

Fair enough, but I fear that most of the time hype comes from people who fear missing the latest boat, or who think it'll help them if they say stuff like XX is cool (a misplaced positive attitude always helps more, than misplaced criticism) With mass globalization of the hype, we have countless examples of hype - even for programming - around things that aren't especially good. Marketing people know that pretty well.