What's the downside of that? Shouldn't a bit of public criticality help raise the publication standards?

Attacking your opponent's weakest argument is easy. Attacking their strong arguments is what takes skill.

If the paper is getting a lot of press that is one thing, but if its languishing in obscurity, it just feels a bit self-indulgant

It sounds like you're saying that her opponents are the entirety of physics researchers in academia. But isn't it that her opponents are those particular researchers that are publishing poor work, and that she's attacking the strongest arguments of those? Or am I missing something?

And I don't accept the "languishing in obscurity" argument - if a published work is poor, we should still critique it (by publishing a letter to the editorial, or any other manner), rather than just let it pollute the space. There have been many cases of obscure works being picked up decades hence, and especially now with AI "deep research", it's easier and easier for bad work to slip in - so I believe that science communicators should do what they can to add the appropriate commentary to such works. And if it seems like "easy" work, then all the better.