This is a bizarre thread, made worse by Dick's refusal (inability) to name names, other than those whom he personally dislikes, or give examples.

Some thoughts:

"Reviewers who can't sing and can't play." I imagine you drive a car Dick and have an opinion on it's good and bad points, and how it compares to other cars, but can you build one?

Editors may well be friends with their writers, are you seriously suggesting that they shouldn't be? It doesn't affect their assessment of their writing, trust me, I know.

As for right of reply, when a magazine doubles in size and consequently cost because of the publication of artists objections to a review (which may or may not be valid) and the subsequent dialogue, will anyone want to pay for and read it? I think not. Lots of magazines (and pretty much all review websites) have forums where objections can be made to your hearts content. If they don't, there's Mudcat and others.

Lastly, every reviewer/critic I know, and I know quite a few, is a music fan first, last and always. They don't write for money, they don't write because it gives them a sense of power or importance, they don't have axes to grind, they don't pursue vendettas and they don't write bad reviews of an album because they don't like the artist. All of them want to improve their writing and constantly try to do so because none of them think they're perfect. Those are really no good get weeded out by editors, as you can easily see by looking at a couple of issues of a magazine printed two years apart say.