It's funny, I don't like AB all that much, mostly because I find his manner tedious, sort of pseudo-edgy Mouseketeers play scientist. On gadgetry and whatnot, I do find that he's into it more than I'd like, but compared to most TV cooks he's dead on: he insists that you ought not to buy anything that has only a single use. And there go 99% of the useless gadgets in the drawer.
As to his right-way/wrong-way thing, again I think this is largely a matter of perception, and in particular historical reference. If you have a strong sense of the historical range of a dish or technique, you're bound to find AB telling you that the "best" or "right" way is such-and-such irritating. On the other hand, if you are trying to learn how to get this result at all in the first place, it's probably best to have him give you a relatively simple, straightforward method, founded largely on calculation and formulas rather than practice, skill, or talent.
I do get very irritated sometimes when he makes sweeping statements about the history of this or that... and gets it dead wrong. He had a show about gumbo, and basically trashed Cajun cuisine, and specifically Paul Prudhomme, without apparently realizing he was doing it. He claimed that all that very spicy stuff was a bunch of marketing nonsense. Really? Have you ever eaten Prudhomme's cooking -- or just decent Opelousas cooking in general?
In the same show, he made what I think of as a classic America's Test Kitchen false test. He compared bad technique to his idiosyncratic method. Which worked? His, but what do we learn? The question was how to make a dark roux. His method does work, but actually is a bit finicky and time-consuming. Then there's doing it the old-fashioned way, which is a bit finicky and time-consuming. Then there's doing it the standard post-Prudhomme professional way, which is a bit finicky and extremely quick. What he compared was his method against the old-fashioned way done wrong. What's the point of that?
Unfortunately, you can't really have this discussion on the basis of transcripts alone. He does sometimes say things like, "now you can do it X way, but I prefer Y." Sounds very even-handed. But in the background when he says this, there's somebody on fire, or somebody dressed as an ancient French chef committing suicide, or whatever. The point being clear to the viewer: you can pick A or B, but one way has a lot of heavy tradition going for it... and the other way works better and is easier. That's not exactly even-handed.
As a final note, I'd like to point something out. There is a nice division that appears in this discussion, which you might think about comparing to other discussions on this forum (and elsewhere). That's between "tradition" (often negative) and "authentic" (almost always positive). If you happen to like something that isn't the old, classic way, you're Mr/Ms Hip and down on heavy old stodgy tradition. If you happen to like something (often something associated with "ethnic" cuisines) that isn't what one usually gets in mainstream restaurants, you're all on fire to stick to "authentic" foods.
Next time you find yourself reading or writing either of those two words, stop: are you just picking the one you like to fit the moment? You're in very good company if you do this, but it's kind of silly and incoherent if you step back and think about it.
