I've seen people straight up call skins with the bigger eyes bad for no other reason than they have big eyes

People actually care that much about the eyes of a skin? oml, I just make masks/hide faces so i didnt realize this was such a huge thing

As someone who's been making skins with unusual colors and eye shapes, I too have heard comments like those, my answer's always the same, different styles for different tastes.
Personally I either do big 2x2 pixel eyes or odd shapes, for a plethora of reasons, main ones being color options and expressions, but 1x2 eyes, dot eyes, NO eyes, etc... are all fine choices too, they may not always be to my taste but it doesn't make the skin bad either.

I totally agree with you, different skins suite different styles and like you I personally prefer the depth that the bigger eyes have because it lets you experiment with complementary colours!!

i too have come across a lot of eyeball elitists lol

i like bigger eyes on my own skins because they aren't just...one white pixel, one blue pixel, they have more depth imo
i think the small eyes work on skins with more mature/darker character concepts & "teen" eyes work really well on portraying youthful/bright characters

there's a place for every skin style, including teen skins. they aren't less than </3