Even if it sounds impersonal and lazy, this is just called being polite, most people still prefer an answer of this kind to "lol no, sorry, you suck". And that's why we do it aswell. Perhaps we should work more on make it seem less impersonal, but the message is clear and loud in any case.
I got the distinct pleasure of describing my big physics idea to Murray Gell-Mann, who is both a Nobel laureate and expert in (one half) of the specific topic I was interested in. He told me very bluntly he thought it was hopeless, and I consider it a sign of respect that he didn't feel the need to sugarcoat it.
There's politeness--with which I've only seen Gell-Mann flirt--but then there's the sticky-sweet bullshit the OP was parodying.
(He's wrong though, and I'm still working on it :)
Dude I would take a cut to have someone as a vc who said "lol no, sorry, you suck." I mean jesus christ these are the last people we want patting our egos.
Not me, I like people being polite with me. Which doesn't mean these messages couldn't be more informal and direct. But "you suck" is not impersonal, is rude.
I have my ego pretty much under control, exagerated compliments won't do any damage here.
I prefer when people are realistic. Polite and impolite are immaterial.
VC boilerplate is etiquette, which means formalized behavior designed to reduce conflict, but also at the expense of communication. It's not really about politeness, so much as being noncommital both ways.
In the time I've spent as an entrepreneur, I learned that I actually much prefer the "Your idea sucks and here's why" approach than the polite and encouraging response, mainly because if they try to keep things positive, you're likely to continue to spend time trying to get to a point where they WILL invest, which turns out to be never, because they're not interested. It's a sure fire way to waste a boat load of your time.
The problem with universally sugar-coated answers is that, unless you're psychic, it's impossible to know for sure where you stand and what to improve, and you're left to randomly walking through the self-improvement space until you get lucky or run out of resources.
Even if it sounds impersonal and lazy, this is just called being polite, most people still prefer an answer of this kind to "lol no, sorry, you suck". And that's why we do it aswell. Perhaps we should work more on make it seem less impersonal, but the message is clear and loud in any case.