If anyone else was surprised as I was to hear that Verdana was disliked, here's the most compelling argument I found against it:

While it was meticulously designed for on-screen legibility, these days higher resolution screens and anti-aliasing, etc. are a better solution than meddling with the letter shapes e.g., taller x-heights, bigger openings, etc.

One detractor did allow for Verdana when rendering fine-print/legalese at very small font sizes--as long as it was unlikely to be printed.