I think the attacks on starbucks indicates a lack of taste, i mean what are they saying that dunkin's better? lol starbucks got huge because their product is better both in terms of the coffee (relative to mass market outlets), and because of the superior presentation, decor and staff.
I like starbucks, it's clearly better than mass market stuff which is why it was able to carve out huge niches for itself. Dunkin is ok working class coffee but not in the same category of taste at all, and McDonald's is simply trying to follow starbuck's success.
In countries where there's a much stronger, established and quality coffee culture there are still 'bucks doing very well. The only difference is that unlike the US, starbucks rivals were there decades in advance with an existing euro cafe culture, and they won't be eliminated nearly as quickly as competitors in the US were.
The only way to effectively criticize 'bucks coffee would be in taste tests against the smaller number of independant and/or european coffee chains, but even then it's not clearly one better than the other.
