You end up doing things package tourists would never do, but whether that makes you any better than a package tourist, I don't know. Sometimes you get backpackers who are just furious and contemptuous and say it's completely wrong. I suppose they feel the person you're attacking is them, which is understandable. Stop keeping it secret. I've got a lot of comeback from that actually.
Some people get really pissed off.
Joe Cummings from Lonely Planet wrote a very dismissive piece in the Bangkok Post. I'm not surprised he was sort of nettled. A lot of my problem with guidebooks comes not from the books, but the way they get used. All of the Lonely Planet books for example, have a really good breakdown of the country, explanation of customs and so on, but I just don't know how many people read it, which isn't Lonely Planet's fault. Having said that, Lonely Planet has really, really irritated me in the past.