I agree that vilifying MP3 is excessive. As with most technologies, it has its place. I've used MP3's at work for years now to try to drown out the horrible muzak - the original CD's won't sound any better on $15 computer speakers fed from a cheap sound card, and it eliminates the need to bring CD's in to work.

At least some of the ire directed toward lossy audio compression algorithms seems to be a reaction to the way the general public has embraced the MP3 and the iPod - it's a reasonable solution for music portability (certainly no worse than any other previous portable technology, considering the quality associated with portable CD players or - gulp - our old friend the cassette), but it simply isn't the equal of other technologies for quality. The notion of people misunderstanding MP3 and considering it an equal substitute for CD (or even worse, for newer technologies like DVD-A, SACD, and the lossless TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio formats) will inevitably cause the audio enthusiast to cringe - and may lead to severe convulsions for audiophiles.