There is a direct correlation between production level and commercial success in that most overly produced stuff like this is overtly crafted for the latter. You only need to go and listen to most radio RnB stuff to realise this is just as commercialised but packaged as counterculture for people who can't appreciate irony - the guitars are basically just designed to be synths without which you'd pretty much have a pop record anyway. This is one ideal stretched to an extreme and the reason everyone is so uncomfortable with it is that Rock music traditionally represented a medium which was, to an extent, antithetical to Pop ideals; it contained organic elements of groove, feel and emotion. This, obviously, has none of these things.
Music like this is essentially the pinnacle of the homogenisation of the genre itself and the reason even the producer behind it is so conflicted is that unlike a pop record which sells itself on being a hook and some production tricks this sells itself on the lie of having, to some extent, values beyond monetary success or the exploitation of production trickery for capital gain. Which ironically in a genre of music designed to be controversial is the only controversial thing about it.
Ultimately music like this represented an opportunity to carve out a niche taking producer points for applying pop conventions to a small number of bands which were initially unlikely to be picked up by big time mixers and Joey has exploited it to full effect for better or worse.
One would hope there is a backlash against this soon and we all have to actually go back to making organic music again instead of pandering to relative levels of convention and genre bastardisation.