Iain M Churches said:

Surely no-one, but no-one buys a piece of equipment based on what he/she
has read in a review.

It happens more often than you think, Iain.

Are people really that insecure/indecisive?

That's not the usual problem why people buy overpriced audio stuff. Fact
is, there's high noise-to-signal ratio in audio marketing. Somehow or
other (but not because of Stereophile), audio has acquired a mystique
among people who are new to the arena. The array of choices is daunting.
The noise you get at the mass-market box stores can give a beginner all
kinds of wrongheaded notions about what to look for.

Sad to say, the class war constantly being raged on Usenet by the
downtrodden of the world is also seen in somewhat high relief in audio.
The main reason for that is that the utilitarian stuff is priced to fit
90% of consumers' budgets, but the fancy stuff has prices that go
through the roof. Even the big box stores have engaged in the
higher-price-equals-better game, although not so much any more because
now it's TVs that command the lion's share of the budget. And the notion
of "better" is fuzzy too, because it can apply to sound quality, build
quality, ergonomics, feature set, warranty, etc.

If you've never helped guide a newbie through the portals of consumer
audio, give it a try. (Especially a female.) Then you'll see all the
pitfalls that can lead to a bad decision.