It's interesting because on one hand, the corksniffing can be really silly, but on the other hand, differences in "identical circuits" are often plainly audible.

Senses are a funny thing, including hearing. When playing, I can easily hear subtleties like whether the Jazz III pick I'm using is made of Ultex or nylon. But I can listen to recordings I made, and not even be sure which guitar I played. (I've been playing for 35 years and recorded many albums.)

So these subtleties and details are real, they're audible (in certain circumstances), and the mockers generally don't know what they're talking about. But they're also easy to overfocus on.