his hideous design work on the exterior of Guardians, cheap asphalt carnival at AK, lame Kali Raft ride, and one of the most annoying pre-shows in Disney history with the repeated "RAISE YOUR HANDS TO BE SCANNED!!!" are all embarrassing examples of his overrated work.
If you objectively think those are fine examples of Imagineering, than we just disagree on the definition of quality.
Many imagineers have good work and weak work - with the weak work often being related to budget constraints (where they're told to accomplish X, whether it's a certain level of capacity or whatnot, at budget Y).
Tony Baxter is one of the greatest second-generation imagineers, with Big Thunder, Splash, Star Tours (the first-ever theme park simulator), Indiana Jones Adventure, and of course Disneyland Paris. But he was also the creative lead for Tomorrowland 1998, which - thanks in large part to Paul Pressler - was impossibly budget-constrained for what they were asking for from Baxter, and thus a failure.
Dino-Rama and Kali are both examples of Rohde being extremely constrained by budgets. For Dino-Rama, he was told that he needed to add a given amount of ride capacity for an impossibly small budget (Paul Pressler again), so he put it in the least obtrusive location that he could, and hoped (in vein) that it would be replaced quickly. As for Kali, his original plans were for something extraordinary, almost at the level of Kilimanjaro Safaris:
...but then he was told to cut the budget so severely, there wasn't much left for the attraction.
Some of Joe Rohde's best work is in the richness of detail / level of immersion of DAK's Africa, Asia, and Pandora. I consider those among of the most immersive lands in any theme park, anywhere in the world (and I been to DisneySea).
I also have criticisms of Rohde's work, such as overlooking practical considerations like crowd-flow in certain places (e.g., the nearly-hidden location of CTX), and overemphasizing single effects (e.g., even when the yeti worked, it didn't seem like the best use of the money that it cost, which could have been spread more evenly for different effects throughout the ride).
