I think I know this one!! At the time (pre most of it coming out on VHS) Pertwee was seen as The Golden Age Of Srs Classic Dr Whom, like how some fanboys are now about Hinchcliffe, and McCoy was in recent memory and people could remember the silly bits and the cheap bits, plus the controversy of the Cartmel Masterplan. So it was a bit of a "trad(itional) v rad(ical)" fight.
Aahhhh. That makes sense. Thanks for sharing; I love knowing the fandom infighting and received wisdom.

I really don't get why Hinchcliffe is supposed to be the greatest. There's a good amount of solid stories in there, and Four and Sarah are legitimately awesome, but like? I don't think I'd put a single story from that time on a top twenty list. Wait I lie: I forgot Horror of Fang Rock. Is that Hinchcliffe? It's not in the high Hinchcliffe era, for sure.

Ooh, how do you like Two?
I do like him; he's highly likeable, and you can totally see that he's the template for everybody from Four onward, so there's none of that adjustment period where you get used to him. I'm just worried there's not enough of him for me to actually get attached. I'm nearly done now, but I've only just started watching him. I don't feel like I've got a handle on his particular character at all. (I've had similar problems with Six and Seven. I want to like them a lot more than I do, but they've only got a handful of stories each, and it's just not enough time.)