There's definitely a disconnect somewhere, because half (or more) of the people writing about Lean Startups, Customer Development, etc., clearly don't get it at all. I'm almost at a point where I'm not going to bother reading any post that mentions "lean startup" or "customer development" in the title unless the domain is steveblank.com.

I think part of the problem is that the "lean startup" approach inherits a lot of (or all of) Steve Blank's "Customer Development Methodology", and CD is not a quick and easy thing to learn. I mean, the basic gist of it can be taught in 5 minutes, but the actual methodology is very elaborate and detailed. But if all you read is the "Lean Startup" book, or a few blogs on the topic, and don't actually sit down and read The Four Steps To The Epiphany (or The Startup Owner's Manual) directly - and probably a few times - you probably don't know enough about the topic to really use it, or comment on it.

For perspective, I'll offer this: I first read TFSTTE about 2 years ago, and have been incorporating the approach into what we do at Fogbeam Labs ever since. I've also read the Eric Ries book, and several other titles on the topic, and a ton of blog posts on the topic. I've also attended Lean Startup Circle meetings and follow the LSC mailing list. And I'll still quickly admit that I have a lot to learn. I think I could teach the basics to somebody else right now, based on what I know, but I'm not even close to being a real expert on this. And I've been at ground-level, actually implementing this (albeit not full-time) for two years or so..

It's a bit like Agile Development in a way... "Lean Startup" and "Agile Development" have both become trending buzzwords that are often flaunted by people who don't really understand all the depth and nuance of the topic, which results in an inevitable backlash (also by people who don't really understand the topic in any depth).