I agree with the earlier point they made about over inflating things because you're a fan. If everything is the greatest thing ever, nothing is the greatest thing ever IMO. And when less hardcore fans react with less than 100% positivity those people get mad.
The Illmatic thing...eh I get having it as a standard since it's one of the greatest rap albums ever, if not the greatest. But going into every Nas album thinking "oh man I wonder if he will top Illmatic this time" sounds insane to me lol. Some guys come out the gate with a defacto best album. If they never top it but string together a bunch of good to great followups how can you be mad? If anything it just makes their catalog better than their peers. DJ Shadow comes to mind. Ironically he released his last album on Mass Appeal lol and it was pretty good+. But his first album is a defacto "one of the greatest albums ever" and fans haggled and bytched about his later work despite him having good to great projects beyond the first album.