It was mixed. The main people who hated was cats who was really loyal to analog. But there was def more people who were impressed he was even doing that with FL. I remember clearly cause I was producing and djing in that time frame as well.
Mixed but I'd argue it leaned more towards him being criticized. People forget, Little Brother did not get a lot of love in real time across the board in the "real rap" world. Part of that was them being from the south but it was also production, specifically 9th's beats. The FL snares were clowned by a lot of people. Whether it was Nas fans criticizing the God's Son remixes or NY fans complaining that he was getting compared to Pete Rock by some people. I was def shytting on 9th's drums until a few years ago when he started playing around with break beats.
A similar gear reductive take I've noticed recently is beat heads being mad about Madlib producing on his iPad. First everyone denied he did Bandana on it. Then when Madlib confirmed he wasn't trolling, certain people got aggy lol.