PS: Also gmaxwell and Co rant about other stuff and point out mistakes/criticize them
Not sure what you mean by this, but pretty sure GMaxwell is a supporter of the CryptoNote architecture and of the Monero project but is rightly wary of the inherited codebase. In fact his enthusiasm for Bytecoin (before the ninja-mine scam surfaced) was the main reason I took an interest in CN-based currencies. Has he become a critic of Monero devs?