Earlier quoted context omitted.
You do realize that when you look up the synonyms to misleading you get many of the same results, right? I'm sorry that you feel the word disingenuous has too strong a negative connotation but I won't curb my speech because of your opinion. If I were to follow that line of thinking I'd have also used a word other than critique because many people foster the opinion that it too has a strictly negative connotation.
Disingenuous means "not of noble character", and more generally means things along the lines of "deliberately dishonest". "Disingenuous" does not mean "misleading, maybe by accident". It's an attack on someone's character. So, if you wanted to say "misleading, maybe accidentally", you used the wrong word. Maybe over time, people are evolving toward using the four-syllable word as a one-to-one replacement for the thre…
And no, I actually meant to use the word foster. While you're probably right that the larger issue is how many people hold the opinion, for me personally its about how many people vocally defend the opinion (i.e. promote). For instance, if you and Shawn didn't feel the need to defend your position on disingenuous it would be a non-issue because people would at worst understand what I meant by context. This method of understanding by context is the exact mechanism by which our wonderful language evolves over time so while those who hold an opinion of a definition will eventually go away those that foster an opinion on a definition can have a long lasting impact on our language.
[1] "not truly honest or sincere" - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disingenuous
"slightly dishonest; not speaking the complete truth" - http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/british/dising...
"not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does." - http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english...