I'm a big fan of Dean. I enjoyed following his escapades last year when he ran 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. His 50th marathon was NYC, and he damn near broke 3 hours. 3:05 was his finish, I think. The blog was at
http://enduranceis.typepad.com/. I don't know if it's still there.
There does seem to be a bit of Dean hatred among the running snobs out there. My guess is that most of them are incredibly jealous of the fact that despite not being fast, he's managed to make a very comfortable living from running. He's not the first to do many of the things he's done, including the 50-50-50, but he's by far the best known among people who don't closely follow that kind of stuff. The attitude towards Dean is the same attitude you encounter when "elites" talk about Jeff Galloway. Dean and Jeff have helped bring running to the masses, and there's an attitude out there that it has "dumbed down" running. My opinion is that anything that gets people off their fat butts is a good thing, regardless of how slow they run.