Thanks for the considerate answer. I'll disagree one more time, but if you want, we can just agree to disagree, it's also fine of course.
"Wii had the most commercial success. PS3 had the most critical success."
Yes that a nice way to sum it up. I guess there aren't many other objetive ways to compare the platforms. Are you agreeing there or just summing up what I said? Because:
"But I would maintain that a critical reception by any definition of the word wouldn't be an objective argument for quality."
"critical success" is critical success anyway you see it, right? Isn't that objective? There must be some kind of cognitive dissonance going on if you agree that it's a valid point regarding to it's existance, but it's not a valid point regarding to it's consequences.
Maybe the problem is that you're predetermining the effect to mandatorily have the very same nature as the cause. See:
"Better or worse by it's very nature is a product of point of view."
So you deny that an objective effect can be the result of subjective causes (in the case, a colective of subjective causes). Even if they can be effectively measured? For example, seeing these lists (this and this), can't you read the implied demographics that voted the most on both lists? One show the top games for PS3 users, and the other is the equivalent for the 360. Isn't that an objective info, easy to deduce?
But even then you aren't considering that the very same issue that could harm one platform (subjectivity), can and should also affect the competitor and even out in the end, unless one assumes a scenario of conspiracy. In the end, the aleatory unfairness towards one should compensate the other when you consider the sheer number of games, gaming journalism companies and scores involved.
And for the last:
"It's a fallacy to assume that just because one alternative is straight poor, that the other alternative is clearly not only better but also a good alternative."
Just to clear that up, while that's indeed a fallacy, I by no means think that user reviews are what grant legitimity to professional reviews. It's kind of a complex question, and I made a big post about it, but it was too much of a tl;dr, and erased it. But I guess it won't hurt though if I make an observation here: in the '90s and early '00s reviews were a lot better than nowadays, even on gamespot. It was common to have separate scores to different aspects of the game, like graphics, sound, story, gameplay, "tilt" or replay value, etc., with singular scores and an overall score, plus the text, and in some cases multiple reviewers for the same game.
Even though they are not as reliable as before, professional reviews are still a lot more careful and mindful than our playful experience with the game. The discrepancies I mentioned between user reviews and professional reviews are only the symptoms that varied professional reviews show a more consistent range of scores (Halo 3, Gears of War 2, Little Big Planet, Uncharted 3, etc.).
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