Crow was a good writer when he stayed within his world and place. But he could certainly be smug, prissy, and vain about the accuracy of his judgements. Judge Bill Crow, his decisions are final. Not just him, but fellow ulcerateds like Phil Woods, Bob Brookmeyer....probably Gerry Mulligan on a bad day.
Here's the deal for me = Tony Scott was indeed often annoying when he did his squiggly-diggly schtick, especially when he did it as a way to skirt over actually playing the changes. But sometimes he was good doing that. Not usually, but sometime.
More importantly, at some point he stopped doing that (or at least got it under control). As much as I find his earlier work uneven (to put it mildly), I find his later work to be immensly pleasurable and satisfying.
He evolved, simple as that. Assigning "motives" to it and shit like that seems to be typing the player regardless of the music. "It's Tony Scott, so no mattter what he plays, it's always going to be XYZ". And I'll call laziness on that one.