Lumping all varieties of pipes together is like lumping all varieties of guitar together. We don't consider a 00 Martin and a Les Paul connected to a Marshall stack to be the same thing, why should smallpipes and highland pipes be equated? Blanket statements about instruments usually indicate ignorance on the part of the speaker.

Anyway, it's the player, not the instrument, that defines the sound. Any instrument can be irritating in the wrong hands or enthralling in the right hands.