Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe IPAs were meant to taste as they did after a long voyage to India. Maybe at the end of the voyage was when they tasted their best. Maybe the hops were just a preservative and nobody really liked drinking beer with overly strong hop flavours and aromas.
My theory is that people who like these extremely hoppy IPAs have (1) lost their ability to taste more subtle flavors, (2) are performing some kind of signalling to their fellow beer connisseur peers about how much of a beer geek they are.
Or, perhaps, people simply have different tastes. IPAs make up nearly 1/3rd of the dollar share of craft beer in the US - they're hardly some ultra-acquired taste that you could use to signal that you are part of the beer elite.