I for one can't ever turn off the analytical side of my brain so I'm always comparing against something, even now when I'm just winding down after work. This also means I can get rather frustrated with what ever headphone I'm currently using if it isn't up to snuff. With the HE90 I just couldn't bring myself to use them and with the HE Jade I couldn't even look at them.
That said, things are often blown way out of proportions, just look at the whole cable mess or people using the pricetag as some benchmark. Claims that one needs a 5K$ source to hear what these transducers really can do is just utter, fucking nonsense. It did come from somebody who thinks Esoteric isn't the overpriced crap it really is so go figure...