I would say the structure of most of those gripes is the same as the regular guitar player community. Look at any top XX list of players, and it is dominated more by the popularity of the band than the actual skill of the player, which is to say predicated on the quality of the songwriters of which the player in question may not play a huge role.
I mean… Vic Wooten is even a much better songwriter, works better with other musicians, but his main gig doesn’t have much mass appeal because (mostly) there’s no vocals. And so Rolling Stone’s reader poll puts him at number 10.
Another one, which seems to basically be based off the Rolling Stone list lists Bootsy Collins at 22. Bootsy is not a great bass player–he is just a cool cat who does some cool stuff on his Space Bass. More of a cultural icon than bass player, per se, as his vocals are just as famous as his spacy bass.
The lists which are curated based on the opinions of the writer instead of a voting system are much better, IMO. I love reading the rock and metal oriented, “Best Guitar Solo” lists, because any list that puts the largely unknown Megadeth deep cut, “Tornado of Souls” high up the list is clearly a person who plays well enough to know great playing when they hear it.
Another case in point on popularity: this list of Metal bass players which list Robert Trujillo below Jason Newstead:
https://www.thetoptens.com/best-metal-bassists/
Newstead is famous among bassists for (and I am not making this up) not being audible. But he was on deck for Metallica’s most popular albums.
