Well then that's the issue. Some of us aren't seeing this implicit promise based merely on the product's very existence. We are seeing the book for what it explicitly is. And we aren't getting upset that our own biases are not being fulfilled when we see the product on the shelf.
I don't think that's a good thing. Being conditioned as a customer to expect that the product means you'll have to work to fix it is like buying Ikea furniture but having to source your own wood and hardware for parts of the build, and in others having to figure out how to put it together without a page of instruction. I mean, I'm an engineer and have done woodwork -- I've built custom floor to ceiling bookshelves for my home, not to mention two desks. I'm not great at woodwork, but I'm decent, and I adapted my own designs from others, much like what you're suggesting GMs need to do with published adventures. But, I also own a few things from Ikea, and I greatly appreciate that I don't have to do that -- that everything is in the box, and the instructions work, and the product is good without hassle (my daughter's room is a homage to Ikea at this point -- she loves the stuff).
That the customer base is expecting to have to fill in the blanks doesn't give the product a pass for not being explicit about this. And that some people run it without problems doesn't mean that there's not a problem. You wouldn't buy a product that has lots of 1-3 star "doesn't work" reviews because there's a handful of 5 star "worked great for me!" reviews, would you? Especially if the low reviews list specific problems that the high reviews just say weren't problems for them. You'd look at the problems, evaluate the product, and see if those are likely to be problems for you.
This is the point of the criticism. Sure, WotC may not ever listen, and may not change, but if one poster here is aided by a detailed criticism -- if only to know how to address it themselves -- then the criticism has value. Dismissing it because there might be a different someone that doesn't need it isn't really a valid counter. That would be like saying seasonal allergy medicine is unnecessary because some people don't need it at all and others can just muddle through with some home-remedies.
Especially considering that it is quite possible to run these adventures exactly as they are. Some people will be able to run the book cover to cover and have a great time with it. Now will it fit the nitpicky, exacting needs of every single DM out there and how they run their own specific style of game? No. Nor should anyone expect it to. And if someone DOES expect it to... then that's on them. Not WotC.
No, it's on WotC. Unless they're explicitly stating that you cannot run their adventure without changing or fixing it, it is on them. They're providing an adventure, which has a whole set of implied qualities -- that it's actually a complete adventure, at least to the point it functions on it's own; that it has everything present necessary to run or it is explicit in what other products are necessary to run it; and that it runs at least reasonably well from the text. I don't think that decades of this being rare is sufficient to say that these things aren't the fault of the adventure writers. I also don't expect perfection, but there's so many places that things are obvious that there's a thriving post-market discussion/product line to "fix" adventures that it's obvious there's a continued issue. I'm unwilling to say that the adventure writers are at least a large part at fault for this. Again, they've done well in other products, so it's tough to say.
Now, that said, I absolutely recognize that there are production tradeoffs -- that a good enough product is the best product if it's the one you have to sell. And I don't expect perfection or close to it, that's not only impossible it's unreasonable. But when there is a common set of complaints that seem to be applicable to every product, and these complaints are resolved for many by amateur hobbyists (the popularity of the Alexandrian fixes, for example), then it's not a matter of catering to specific whims or tables, but addressing some fundamental issues of play. And, again, a product that works just fine for some doesn't prove that the product is generally good.
