Wow. I don't see it this way. Some people are better players than me, so they get bored on normal difficulty, so they developer gives them a higher difficulty so they can enjoy the game too. The same goes for easier difficulties. I play most action games on easier difficulty because of my terrible reflexes. And I enjoy them, because they are challenging for me, at that difficulty.
There's a difference between providing well designed different difficulties and making a game balanced around one specific difficulty and then manipulating that via macros once the game is complete, usually via speed or quantity modifiers to whatever stats make the game work.
Most games will be different in their implementation of difficulty, depending on genre and complexity. For example, chess will be balanced with the very hardest setting in mind, the maximum the computer can compute, and then the macro just reduces the number of moves ahead the computer is permitted to think. An RPG will likely be balanced around the idea of getting the player to complete the story on what we would commonly term 'average' difficulty, and then the macros modify the game to be both harder and easier. Something like Space Invaders would be balanced around easy and then further levels simply inflate the macro until the game becomes literally impossible.
What I said was that it's an inherent trait among the human species to want to play a game without feeling like someone is 'letting' you win. The desire to win 'properly' and 'fairly'. The specific difficulty a game is designed around is the difficulty the game should be judged by. If by doing so the game garners a reputation of being 'too easy' and a lot of people recommend upping the difficulty, then that is a design fact, not a bunch of people being 'gaming snobs'. Likewise if a game gets a reputation for being too hard on normal and a lot of people recommend reducing the difficulty, then that is also a design fact, not a bunch of people being 'gaming n00bs' who need to 'git gud'.
If a game expects you to jump around the difficulties while playing it, ie: that's what a lot of people are recommending, then that's a design flaw and should be expressed as such.
Even your own words express this situation. You said to me "I play most action games on easier difficulty" which suggests that you yourself are indeed aware that you are not playing these games on their intended difficultly, that you are not playing them 'properly'. Because you enjoy the experience regardless, you have developed a psychological excuse that permits you to do that without feeling guilty: "And I enjoy them, because they are challenging for me, at that difficulty", which is fine, that's the whole point of difficulty macros, for precisely this reason.
Now let's imagine you review the product for a living. Imagine you're a professional reviewer. Is your experience of the game on 'easier' a good and accurate representation of the game:
a) As the developers intended you to play it, as experiencing the game at its design optimum.
b) For other players who might be interested in the game and what the game is like.
c) In enabling you to spot what works and what doesn't.
And people shouldn't really be reviewing games on the harder difficulties for the same reasons. And you shouldn't expect a game developer to make 5 different games every time they make a game, you should expect them to make one, one good one, which permits macros for alternative difficulties.
If someone does make a game where there are 5 to 10 difficulties all perfectly balanced and cared for like bonsai trees in the development process, then more power to them, but in no way should that be an expectation. And people are happy with that scenario. Releasing a game where the difficulty is either messy and uneven or unspecific as to the intended difficulty is a flaw, and one that should be pointed out, that is the whole point of constructive criticism. Saying "everything's fine" because you have 20 random options or the game gives you the ability to swap difficulties on the fly is merely apologist rambling that helps no-one except the ego of the person who's found themselves debating from an absurdists point of view.
No-one cares what difficulty you choose to play your games. Play games on whatever difficulty suits you best. If you're offended by my post because you sometimes play on different difficulties to 'normal' then you simply haven't understood the post.