And that's you. You're dedicated enough to actively explore other options, and you clearly believe that you would be able to find a group of people comfortable enough with also exploring those options to find a game that you like better than the "default" choice.
I don't think that applies to a lot of gamers.
So you are saying that 4E didn't get a fair consideration from enough people?
Those are the sorts of people I would avoid playing with, even if I made Pathfinder my game of choice. I wouldn't tolerate a gamer at my table saying "Pathfinder RPG sucks," - I'd ask them to keep their inflamed opinion to themselves, and it would reflect poorly on them in my mind.
This is a total red herring which has nothing to do with the point. The point is, people who don't like 4E won't play 4E. Though I guess you are correctly pointing out that I'm only counting the outspoken 4E dislikers, and if we included the people who just kept it to themselves the group would be even larger.
The players will, by and large, play what the DM wants them to play, whether because they have no strong preference themselves, or because they'd prefer to play a game with a system that isn't necessarily their first choice rather than play no game at all.
Levels of play favor DM adoption.
And this does nothing to change the point that this will favor the more popular game. If we assume that 4E is more popular then more DMs will prefer it and therefore the net balance of players playing against their first choice will benefit 4E. If you are saying this hurts 4E because PF is more popular than 4E then I will agree.
What I'm saying is that we could have seen a situation where a lot of gamers initially stuck with 3.5, but eventually migrated to 4e simply because they'd prefer an actively-supported game rather than a game with little to no support (just as we typically see with an edition change).
Why would they play a game they don't like?
There are a ton on 4E detractors who also dislike PF and still play 3.5. They are a perfect test group for your theory. If you were right that group would be steadily migrating to 4E. It isn't happening. This is because you theory is wrong. Your theory is wrong because it fails to account for the fact that people will leave the hobby altogether before they will play a game they don't like. And even without PF there are tons of great alternatives that beat leaving the hobby.
Instead, it wasn't long before it was clear that those who preferred 3.5 would have active support in the form of Pathfinder, and so that eventual migration never took place. Those who stuck with 3.5 but wanted to play a supported game now had two choices: 4e or Pathfinder. They overwhelmingly chose the one that was most similar to the game they were already playing.
This is just a thinly veiled insult that amounts to little more than "people don't play 4E because they fear change.". It is BS.
You cannot discount the tremendous value that active support has to a game. And let's be honest: if Pathfinder hadn't come around, there really would not be anything on the d20/3.5 scene that comes anywhere close to the level of professionalism and support that Pathfinder has.
I'm not. 3.5 would not be nearly what it currently is without the influence of PF. You and I agree 100% on that.
Where we disagree is that you then take a wild leap and presume that without that PF option that everyone would ignore their own tastes and become RPG lemmings throwing themselves into 4E.
You
cannot discount the tremendous determent that not liking a game has on playing that game.
Again, I disagree for all of the reasons outlined above.
I respect you opinion.
I don't respect any of the reasons you have provided.
Bottom line: people won't play a game they don't like. You have not made the slightest effort to address that issue. And if the market was not already rumbling that direction, Paizo would never have dared choose the path they did. And that is all at the feet of 4E.