Yes, the hate towards the JBL push was pretty strong. The IWC hated it and honestly, there still seems to be revulsion whenever it is brought up.
My comment at the time was that I hated he was being pushed so fast. If they wanted to build him up for six months, then I'd probably buy it, but as is, it just felt super rushed.
However, I was one of the ones that kind of defended it for the following reasons:
1) The Smckdown Roster got gutted. Coming out of Wrestlemania, Angle was hurt, Lesnar left, Big Show was hurt, Hogan was long gone by then, Triple H was supposed to move to Smackdown but that got changed (whether or not that decision was supposed to stick or if it was just part of the angle to move Trips there and then trade him back to Raw, I don't know). Taker came back as the dead man, but was strangely working part time AND was involved in dumb angles with Booker T and the Dudleys (Never forget Concrete Crypt). They tried to build the roster up with a slew of new characters like Mordecai and Kenzo Suzuki, but clearly, they didn't cut it. Cena was obviously the end game, but they needed to save him for Mania and he needed a heel to work with. There just weren't many strong options. They had RVD and Rey, but both of them were typically fed to the bigger stars and that was before JBL was a thing. They also served as anchors for the tag division at this time because, fuck it, who else was going to do it? Everyone else worth a damn was on Raw. Over there you had HHH, HBK, Benoit, Foley, Orton, Batista, Shelton, and so on.
2) JBL was actually good in the role. With the country's youth increasing hatred of President George W. Bush, it actually made sense to have a blow hard Texan conservative as a heel and JBL did play the part well. My only two issues with his reign were how it started (pushed too fast) and how it ended (match with Cena was anti-climactic). Everything in between though was some solid heel work and I didn't think it was a bomb by any means.
Jinder might turn out the same way. I don't know, but that still doesn't make up for the fact that they did a horrible job of getting him to that point to begin with.