>I wonder if most developers that trash on PHP for trivial issues like seen in this thread haven't been using it for many years, or had a bad experience (e.g. maintaining a legacy app).

I wouldn't be surprised if many of them don't even have that experience. I've found a lot of people just parrot whatever someone else wrote or said without much thought. The tribalism within the development community is approaching what you'll find with in gaming, sports and even politics.