Yeah, that CTRBootManager really is one heck of a useful tool. I hadn't heard of BootCTR though. I'll look that up. Like you say, you can just set up a nice menu with all that stuff. I have mine autobooting to my CFW of choice (will be trying this momentarily) unless I hold R, then I can select whichever of those I happen to need at the time. rxTools was great back before this stuff and, in fact, it did after all start out as a multi-tool thing.
As for the negativity, one thing to bear in mind is that in most places for every one negative post there are really probably a huge number of people who just don't bother to post who feel positively about it. People are more likely to come in and post over negativity than positive reasons. Especially in this age of the "like" mentality where people think just clicking like or the equivalent counts as the same thing as a real post, lol. So don't worry about it. EDIT: In fact, the fact that so many actually have taken the time to post that they appreciate it despite that modern trend should really show how positive things are...