Honestly, it's sanctimonious comments like the one I quoted that make anyone remotely defensive of Rogan. I don't even LIKE his stand up, but the guy is a fantastic podcast host because he has on interesting guests and is a talented conversationalist and interviewer.
I feel like to some extent the guests determine whether or not I want to listen to the show, but when he has on experts in various fields - artists, journalists, professors, cult survivors, etc - and a diverse range of comics of various styles like Burr, Remini, Diaz, Buress, Cummings, Maron, Kasher, Bell, etc - he shines.
That's like two thirds of the shows he does at least (the fight companion stuff and episodes with hunters and outdoorsmen is where he loses me, but even some of those are more interesting than you'd expect), and he tends to put out at least two 3 hour shows a week, so there's usually something interesting lined up.
He's arguably up there with Stern and Maron in terms of interviewing his guests and extracting interesting responses, anecdotes, etc. Even when his guest are occasionally unlikeable people, he makes an effort to show the listener what makes them tick (though there's still room for improvement there I admit).
I don't agree with him on several things, and I would rank his podcast on the bottom of a top ten of my favorites, but I always find it kind of kinda funny and obnoxious when anons on messageboards speak from a position of (most likely unearned) intellectual authority when blasting his show as garbage or him and the guests as idiots, as though they could host a podcast and make the conversation with guests like that just as interesting/more interesting.
EDIT: not so say that idiotic things don't sometimes happen on the show. They do, lol.
