Although there were a couple of comments directed at the author, IMO most of them were not at all aimed that way. Which is one of the reasons I thought of the cover snark, because IMO those conversations are often more about riffing off of everyone else's comments than off the cover itself (which is how I read the live blogging).

Your point about the cover models, though, is very compelling, because I think we tend to view the images as entirely separate from the person posing for the picture, and yet those images are probably the most *personal* of any aspect of the text.