My problem with Hive is you can't give honest criticism without people saying you're moaning. If you point out flaws, people say you don't add value.

In my experience, this isn't the case at all and I have put out a fair bit of criticism in the past.

Apparently content isn't valuable unless it's sucking up to whales.

Again, this isn't the case at all. But, I think it depends on how it is approached, as well as all other behaviors in the cluster. No piece of content is standalone. Personality matters too - after all, it is a community and in any community, the person is also part of the experience.