Hi cinchez,
If you use these practices it will certainly backfire on you. This is building bad karma for them. A better policy is respect for competitors and a positive attitude towards the strong aspects of programs and tools.
We have a forum here where next to using avast, users are also advised to use many specific anti-malware tools and supporting non-resident av/anti-malware and analyzing products. We have friendly relations with geeks from friendly av forums, I know some also are active here even when they are not using avast themselves (I consider that as a big complement for the know-how stored here), we have many a contact with people that are official malware fighters from anti-malware forums and trained and qualified at anti-malware universities or now malware analyzers for instance for MBAM (miekiemoes). This has not worked out wrong for the avast webforum. I cannot say that off-course as contributor to the forum, but I think where anti-malware lore is concerned we are one of the better forums around, well at least I can say this I learned an awful lot here and found many a good virtual friend here,
polonus