I guess I don't get it still. I'm sure my opinion isn't popular, but I just don't see why somebody gets ripped apart for getting free stuff. The way I see it, if a company finds a person to have enough value to them to want to pay them, through money or free items or whatever, then congratulations to that person. When I worked for service companies in the past, part of my job was to talk about how much better our service was than the competition. It only makes sense that people associated with certain companies are going to speak favorably about their supporting company. If a product development engineer for Knight or CVA or TC joined the board, I'm guessing they would be respected for their opinion and if a question came up about that product, they would be the person to ask. I don't see the difference for somebody that's helping with design or testing or whatever but is only paid through merchandise.
I guess I figure I know who has some sort of association with what company, and if I want to know about a product I know who to ask. That doesn't mean I trust/believe every single word they say about a product, but I also know that they will probably have more knowledge about said product than a lot of others.
Sorry that got a little long, but I just don't get it.