One of my longstanding pet peeves with aB is that the criticism of quality/workmanship/fit-and-finish always gets commingled with general architectural critique. Yes, the two are sometimes related (i.e., architect overreaches by selecting a design that the budget is ill-suited for); but, by and large, its more constructive to separate them.
Here I no longer know who is crapping on the design vision and who is crapping on quality/finish and who is crapping on both.
Generally speaking I agree that brick is appropriate here.