I think they mean in general user, I've commented on it before that it's on odd statement as they don't really give argument as to why. They might answer on their instagram, they seem to be helpful there. I do know that the founder of the company, Brandon Truaxe (I think that's the correct name I always want to type the Canadian's PM's name instead) was quite outspoken about cleansing, retinols, and acids for a long time, as in not a fan of either of them much or the importance placed by others upon those products by the beauty industry until they started selling cleansers, retinols, and acids.
Basically there's two schools of thoughts on skincare, one is to minimise inflammation, reaction, etc. to allow the skin to be as self sufficient as possible the other sees nothing wrong with inducing a bit of trauma to encourage skin to restore itself. Basically the end goal is the same, for skin to be working at its best the approach is just different. Personally I don't think one or the other is better, it's highly dependant on your skin. I tend to err more on the nurturing side allowing skin to do its work by supporting it rather than attacking it into defence mode but I can't rule out that for certain conditions sometimes a more aggressive approach may be the only solution.
It also depends per person/school of thought what they consider to aggressive, Paula's Choice and Deciem will have similar approaches but where Deciem puts a lot of faith in newer technology with minimal causes of inflammation, PC will rely on more established research which puts more stock in acids, etc. which may cause slight inflammation but not enough to be considered harming. Another aspect of it is that a routine heavy with actives often needs adjusting factors to cushion certain side effects (which is what a purist would point as as a deep flaw, a pragmatist will just accept the bad with the good), which is why it's important to understand what the active ingredients do and what they're for. eg. TO Retinoid is quite clogging for me, it works well but this is an annoying side effect, by upping my BHA use I can at least continue to use it without issue.
Poor jo, is the bun fight over yet? I don't know what it is about that FB group but their members always act rather odd on these boards.
I only really rate the Supermud from Glamglow, the Youthmud left me rather unimpressed and the Thirstymud, whilst very hydrating, isn't worth the price they're asking for it. Haven't tried any of the others, there's a weird one that turns you silver (for tightening I believe) which just sounds like fun but I doubt it'll be a showstopper either. I deeply detest their PR babble though, it's probably the main reason why I've always stuck to asking for samples and never buying it.
The Kiehl's has been lasting you long then Enid, good to know it's working out well for you so far 
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