I never fail to become amused at the responses a thread such as this produces.
I don't entirely disagree with your observation and I suppose I really ought to stay out of this, but I would like to respectfully suggest that perhaps it would have not gotten contentious if bait hadn't been thrown in the water with the very first post:
"This past week provided a significant step forward for those considering the Viking engine. The first RV12 so powered flew to the delight of the owner.
It provided him with a faster (131mph in the pattern without even trying), smoother, quieter, more modern engine, and at half the cost of the Rotax powered version."
I think the emphasized sentence wasn't really necessary to pass along the good news. True or not, it appeared to me to be at best a premature victory lap, at worst a deliberate provocation, although I'm sure that it was intended to be nothing more than an exhibition of enthusiasm over a potentially great improvement in opportunities for other RV-12 builders.
In the absence of a past history of this very topic having blown up before, I imagine that sentence would have been totally innocuous. That history is there, though, as we all know, so my opinion is that a little more attention could be paid to the way things may be perceived on this topic, no matter the intention.
Perhaps the next Rotax-powered RV-12 first flight will point out that "it provided him with a reasonable pattern speed of 100 mph, a cruise speed that easily met Van's published numbers, potentially better resale value, an international factory support network, and decades of proven reliability with over 40,000 engines flying today."
I think that example would also be needlessly inflammatory given the history of this topic, well intended or not.
I've said this before: I fail to understand why the qualities of any given engine can't be described without maligning another. I think it's terrific that there is a potentially viable alternative engine for the RV-12 and that it is truly good news that there is now a flying test bed for the specific installation, but I don't see anything positive coming from using it to try to talk down the Rotax.