Accusing is even worse! The problem is that, while this sort of abuse is real, it's much less common than people imagining that they see it when it's not really there. I've written about this a ton in the hope of explaining why we have the rule we do: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
I suppose it's very difficult to tell the difference between astroturfing and a group of people who feel compelled to voice an appreciation for something, perhaps notified by a "Hey I posted this to Hacker News!" message on a mailing list or a Twitter profile they follow. In this case, yes, I would fall into the category of people (as you described in your comments elsewhere) with a strong opinion and confusion over why someone would think otherwise. Except, of course for the author of the article and friends.
