Valid complains that can be made about it, just like about anything else? I've watched people who don't know C++ bitch about C++ for 15+ years referring to lists longer than this one, and it's still one of the most successful languages in the world. PHP is like the C++ of scripting languages - not the prettiest and there are plenty of things to (legitimately) complain about, but stable, well-understood and used by people who are interested in results rather than getting to those results in the most 'elegant' way.