Not surprising and very much in keeping with their often pretentious yet meritless 'philosophy'. Have none of them caramelized sugar before? They have inadequate lighting in their endlessly touted 'test kitchen'?
They so often seem to throw up contrived roadblocks that they devalue their results before they've even begun testing. My problem is that they're supposed to deliver the 'best'. To limit their testing to items that are 'widely available', as they so often claim is derelict, vis-à-vis how they position themselves. Availability is a keystroke away. Why are they not testing widely available (via the Net) lines that all but the newest cooks would likely have at least heard of, let alone wondered seriously about. They are in a unique postion to do just that, yet they fail time and again, as they do with their knife testing, pot testing, kitchen tool testing (less often), et al.
CI found themselves with a (figment of their editorial imagination, imo) problem many years ago. For some time CI was advancing their own and their reader's knowledge, turning new and beginning cooks into more comfortable novices. With the advent of the popularity of the cooking shows on TV, which largely became popular because of their accessible (read: vapid) approach to cooking, CI became more like the shows in response, turning off thousands of advance and pro cooks in the process. (The $ is in the new, newer and novice cooks.)
CI is still worth the read for newer or novice cooks, or for those who simply want to see what they're up to. They're better in baking and in some procedural and food science details, okay with some simpler approaches, uninspiring or downright limited in terms of creativity, flavor understanding, combination, or development.
My problem with CI is the same problem I have with the cooking shows, a preponderance of often over-simplified approaches to food and cuisine (so frequently rehashed) that are devoid of real knowledge, experience and understanding. But the big bucks are with beginning cooks and those who only cook vicariously. I have no issue with that, per se, but this approach 'dis-illuminates', if you will, the doors available to open for cooks who want to advance themselves. They are there but few can see them. I get emails all the time from cooks who want to move past being a novice and do not see how to do so. One thing I tell them: relegate CI to the monitoring pile and stop watching the cooking shows. [/rant]