I think you'll find most people who play the game religiously, are emotionally invested to it, so they'll defend it under the majority of circumstances. I myself, try to defend it when there's reasonable doubt that the conversation is around something that I know isn't specifically the games fault. The other reason I defend it, is because I want the game to last... and the more unwarranted hate people give it, will help its demise.
I think we all know the game has troubles, some major ones that if fixed, would help the game... but if they were easy things to fix, bluehole would have done it by now, I know this from my IT/coding background. For me though, as long as 9/10 games I play don't have bugs, I'm good - which is where it's at for me...