Actually, as I read it, the ASGCA ethics guidelines do not prohibit honest judgment by members of other members' works or of the work of other architects. They only admonish against slanderous or libelous criticism, i.e. willful bad-mouthing. But open, honest, thoughtful judgment is certainly allowed by those terms. My bet is that most ASGCA members have hidden behind the misinterpretation in order to avoid being criticized themselves by their peers.
The larger point of this thread that Jeff Brauer started is very important. The real question here is whether critics, in the course of educating their readers about their own judgments, are obliged in the process to keep learning. I taught for 14 years at the university level, including several standard courses I taught every year that were about the classics (history of political philosophy, U.S. foreigh policy), and each semester I would reread the classic texts and revise my notes and my lectures. Professors whose notes got stale and dusty and never upgraded them got predictable, boring, and students stopped showing up.
Another analogy, from the world of editing (i.e. I really think of myself as a golf course editor, and work that way in the field with designers and when writing reviews). The idea (above) that some critics prefer comedies is literally laughable when in the face of a drama, historical narrative or biography. What do they say, the book is lousy because it's unfunny? That's like critiquing a parkland course and saying it is lousy because it's not a links course or that it doesn't overlook the ocean. In other words, criticism has to be specific to some work of art.
The job of an editor in the early process is to help the author shape the best possible work consistent with what the author is trying to do. The editor's job with a manuscript is to help the author realize his vision -- assuming, as they should have done in pre-editing, that the vision is sound but now needs basically (just) to be tweaked. And the critic's job in reviewing the text is to see what the author was trying to do and how well they achieved it. At that point, the critic doesn't dismiss the work because it wasn't a drama or humorous. One might as well dismiss a biography because it wasn't a cookbook.
If, as Jeff Brauer, Mike Young and a few others agree, a critic's work gets predictable, that is not very good criticism. It becomfs dogma, or propaganda, or special pleading on the part of some one style. Good crticism ought to be sensitive to site-specific design, and while it doesn't have to endorse every project, it needs to explain the strengths and weaknesses and to educate along the way so that the reviewer's standards are clear and the reader can learn something in the process beyond how clever a writer the reviewer is. Most of what passes for "criticism," esp. in the regional press, is mindless fluff, or some writer's attempt to go hole by hole with "shots of the pros." That stuff is generally worthless criticism.
The serious stuff requres a lot more work than most people think. Coming from a tradition of academia, I think there's great merit in that line of work, and that there is nothing to apologize for if you combine a respect for classical writing (Darwin, Wind) with an ability to spend time in the field talking with (not talking at, not just listening to) architects, superintendents, owners, g.m's, golf pros.
I think a good sign of a good critic is the ability to talk in the field and play golf with designers across the spectrum, and that includes people whose work you don't necessarily like. Some of the people who get regularly bashed here have a lot to say about design, and they are obviously successful for a reason. Even if I don't like their aesthetic sensibility I will learn something from them as designers, engineers, businessmen, or people-persons. The sign of a predictable, stale writer is that he ends up talking (and quoting from) the same small circle of people. The sign of vibrant, thinking and creative critic is that he spends more time with the folks he disagrees with and is willing to do mental and intellectual battle with them rather than dismiss them. Just like the best conservatives know their Marxists and their liberals; the best golf course critics are thoroughly versed and can learn from the folks they most disgree with.
But they also have to be able to learn and evolve over time, or at least to refine and diversify their views. And to surprise their readers every once in a while without being predictable.
That's why, ultimately, JWL (above, page 1) is, in my view, wrong about criticism, There is great nobility in being innovative and original in writing and rendering judgments, and it has an important place in explaining to golfers and educating them about what is good work and bad work. Otherwise, all we'd have to rely upon is press releases or those mindless "hole-by hole" accounts in the local fawning press.