You have a point, every time there's a recommendations thread someone comes along to crap on the most popular recommendation (I'm guilty of that too).

I've had to work with a pretty large number of different registrars and hosting companies over the years -- part and parcel of being a troubleshooter -- and I'd place Bluehost squarely in the middle of the pack. They've never done anything infuriating, which puts them way ahead of a lot of other companies, but there's also not really anything about them that sets them apart from the rest of their competition, other than maybe their size.