probably a valid reason for all that negativity...
Not really, all I see is stuff like: "they removed the escape key" (except its still there, even if it isn't a physical key), "no one looks at the keyboard" (touch typists aren't the target demographic), "only 8GB ram?!" (again, HN is not their target demographic), complaining about the removal of ports (not a surprise at all, and Apple is moving the industry towards USB C), and the expected "Apple stopped innovating after Jobs!" comments on every Apple event thread. Personally I found the Touch Bar to be cool in exposing common actions in a touch-friendly manner.
Who is their target demographic?
I can tell you it's not programmers who need the latest CPUs, 32GB RAM, mechanical keyboards, and every gizmo possible in their laptops. It's definitely a more casual professional user. (For anyone who truly needs that kind of power, they have the Mac Pro)
i wonder though how the reactions will be after a few weeks/months when people actually USED the Touch Bar.
It seems kind of early/hard to comment on this thing without having used it yet..