i don't see how any fighting game fan can hate sf. it basically started this whole thing and it's friggin ken and ryu!
i'm from the beginning of this crap. literally, 1987 (yi-ar tabletop), atari 2600 on black and white tv beginning. didn't get nes till 88. i loved sf2 when it came out, and i played the arcade and bought the games. when mk was released it changed everything, because of how it looked. only the old school even understand this. imagine growing up playing atari 2600, then playing nes, then playing the cartoony street fighter 2, then walking into an arcade and seeing mk1...yeah. still, i never stopped loving sf, but back then, it was mk, and then everything else...at least in the midwest where i'm from.
i just recently learned about the big sf scene in cali, since, back then, there was no way of knowing what people were doing in cali or japan or anything like that. so, you just lived in your little bubble, and in my town, mk was god. but, when 3d games came tekken became god--not for me, mainly because it was .75 to 1.00 to play.
anyway, i don't really know anyone from the old days who hates sf. most of us oldies like all those old games. for me, i lump them all together, despite my love for mk1-mk3. world heroes, fighter's history, samurai showdown, street fighter, mortal kombat, virtua fighter, soul calibur, tekken, pit fighter(yup at one point pit fighter was awesome), fatal fury, killer instinct, etc... now it's just mk and sf, but it didn't used to be.
when i was a kid, it used to be customary to get excited for any new street fighter product the same way you would get excited for a new mortal kombat product. that's just how it was. i don't know many fighting game fans who weren't really excited to watch the street fighter 2 anime or the mortal kombat movie. hell, i remember when the street fighter movie was coming out, and all the magazines were showing pictures and crap and they announced raul julia as bision. lol. still watched it, cuz it was street fighter. that's how it was.
now, looking back, i will say that capcom takes better care of their products. i can't see capcom releasing something like the warrior's journey--although they did green light the americanized street fighter cartoon. lol. when i was young i used to wish that mk would go to japan and let anime studios make an mk anime like street fighter 2 did, kinda like what the wachowski's did for the animatrix. lol. good times.
imo, it's usually the younger fans who are fiercely loyal to sf or mk, and it usually is for the silliest reasons ever known, instead of actual gameplay.
there is no reason to hate either game; they each have unique gameplay.