I am with you obviously; as a stoner fan the total denial that stoner had anything to do with the 2007 championship win, the widespread glee about him being "broken" when ill in 2009, etc etc were intensely annoying, as I am sure the detraction from nicky hayden was to his fans in 2006, despite Nicky being as stand-up a guy as you will find in elite sport. I also think stoner's much criticised attitude (such as it is) is a product of his vilification rather than the cause of it.
It has gone way back the other way now though, valentino being relatively unsuccessful for 1 year on a flawed and idiosyncratic bike doesn't make his success (obviously much greater than stoner's thus far and likely to remain so) over such a long period on so many different bikes fraudulent as some are now contending either.
I think there is an element of truth to your point about rossi and dorna believing their own publicity to an extent. He is closer to being an invincible super hero than most human beings but is actually still human, and he himself seemed to believe he could overcome the deficiencies of any bike, as did dorna, whilst allowing the bikes to become increasingly technology driven and making rule changes which specifically detracted from his strengths, perhaps with his assistance in the case of the control tyre rule.
