Another obvious problem with this rantatorial is this:
LuLa generates a lot of traffic (and earns money from selling ads to be seen by this traffic) by reviewing products they get from companies a long time before other customers. Even reports about announcements and expectations of announcements satisfy your need for gear talk that generates traffic. Now imagine the companies would do what Kevin suggests:
Wouldn’t it be cool if someone would make a product announcement and say ‘available to order and ship today’?
Really? C'mon, this is all part of the industry you're making your money from! Every blogger writes things like that to generate "likes".
Make no mistake: I say all this, not because I hate LuLa, but because I like it a lot. It's been on my daily reading list for years. I think Michael and his team have done a great job all this time! I really think that while being part of the online photography business LuLa has still managed to avoid getting too much money-oriented in its writings. (A lot of other sites in the www went down this way in my opinion.) And LuLa was (is?) always better than the others and just different.
But I've noticed some things that I don't think serve LuLa well.
Just to name one more besides this rantatorial: There was the teaser about "the next best thing" we never heard again from.
But I think I'm going to stop here. It's your right to write what you like, it's my right to criticize, it's your right to disagree and move on.
Kevin's last comment says it all.
Mark