I thought the whole spiel that I was mentioning was hilariously stupid to begin with, and still do. But I thought it made good material to launch some sarcasm from.

(And I never used MySpace, so I guess that makes me...half-evil.)

I'll posit a theory that hasn't gotten a ton of traction.  I think the beginning of the "event" series, one that drew characters from all sorts of books together, was MARVEL SUPER HEROES CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS (1982).  It was honestly the first time I'd ever seen all the characters that I loved together in one comic series. I'm not talking just two teams in the same universe (Avengers and Invaders or JLA/JSA) but nearly all of my favorites. I know it was a big hit that spawned a second mini-series, but that in and of itself couldn't be sustained.  So the Powers That Be found a way to make the event take place within a few titles at first and then, eventually, nearly all the titles at a company such that we eventually got SECRET WARS in 1984.  And even THAT couldn't be sustained because it was a mini-series.  So it evolved yet again into the Annual crossover where stories bridged from the monthly into the Annual and then all the Annuals were connected.  

It's been a malignant growth ever since.  That's my take anyway.

Not to discount your experience, but c'mon.  The term came about at a time when floppy disc drives were on their way out and digital media was on its way in.  It's as if to say that you asked a software engineer what was worse: digital or disc.  And the engineer said "floppies".  We all know what that that means (at least those of us who lived in the 80s and 90s).  Someone could casually say that they didn't mean anything derogatory about the phrase, but we all know "floppies" never meant the way comic books "flop" when you hold them in your hand.  It was a term of derision, a negative term associated with what was thought to be an outdated presentation of media.  Read it in context by the people who started using and propagating the term.  

There's not much wrong with having every single person in your universe show up for a party. Contest of Champions was a good time overall, despite its weaknesses. Secret Wars is when things became mercenary and the entire line of books were held hostage in service a single story whose value was arguably not worth the trouble it caused everyone, including the reader. Secret Wars II was a lousy story and, inversely, its effect upon the entire line was consciously engineered to be significantly greater. 

Sales rewarded the bad storytelling choices and we were off to the races, concocting bigger and bigger "events" across broader and broader platforms, dragging every comic and character, kicking and screaming, into lousy, awful melanges that either had no payoff or, worse, artificially manufactured its own "Importance" and indiscriminately sprayed it all over everyone and everything. Individual titles and storylines mean nothing in such an environment. Theme, tone, logic, timing, everything is meaninglessly sacrificed on the altar of Sales and the company dismantling your hard work and skillful craft applauds itself for its brilliance in successfully marketing a schlock book that cascaded across 37 other titles and tells you that you should be on your hands and knees thanking them for the uptick in Sales their move has brought you. By the way, if that number drops afterwards, that's on you, pal, and we're going to be looking at why you can't hold readers... 

Readers who only showed up in the first place to get part 26 of the Big Event and have no interest in these other books otherwise. Someone who buys this month's "Jem and the Holograms" because the Beyondo-Ghaur shows up in it for three panels doesn't care about Jem or her pals. Nonetheless, the book's sales go up and the book itself later gets killed because the Brilliant Editors and Sales Teams wonder why it can't sustain those peaks without the artificial life support of a Big Crossover. "We can't keep swooping in to save these losers all the time..."

Absent the magnifying glass of those Event-driven sales, the book might not have been seen as a problem. In any case, everyone moves on to the next sales cycle booster, creating a constant stream of drek events that become the voice and face of the company, while the accomplishments and stories of the individual titles vanish in relative importance unless they can feed the cycle somehow by giving the Editors and Sales Teams more grist for the mill. "I just turned the Hero's girlfriend of twenty years into a Cosmic Hexagon and had her sewn onto the Ulti-Mitten by the bad guy. You guys can have the Mitten stolen by the bigger bad guy in your 'Beyondo-Ghaur III: Atlantis Redacts' Event if you want..." 

And the people in charge smile because for the first time in twenty years the girlfriend character is going to put some money in their pocket... That she's been doing so all along and given the reader some genuine emotion or satisfaction in the regular title is meaningless by the new standards. 

"Y'know, we could pull her off the Mitten and spin her off now as her own book... 'Hexxx!'" 

"I dunno... Legal tells me we need to re-up our trademark on Herbie the Robot. Let's make her the new Herbie..." 

"You got it! It's not like any of this matters..."

Not to oversell it, but I really liked that story way back when. It opens with the team playing frisbee... 

But whatever I bought, the amount spent remained the same.