My basic answer would be that people are not as simple as they're sometimes made out to be.
I am interested in some of the analytical stuff. I like WAR. But some of the analytical stuff goes way beyond what I'm interested in.
As for the shifting, I don't like what it does to the game and I'm glad about the rule change.
Something else I will mention-Theo Epstein himself was probably one of the driving forces behind the change.
Like I say, people aren't that simple.