It seemed that sitcom reruns were a huge part of my live when I was a kid, and I even had a year or two where MTV was watchable if you stayed up late enough. Star Trek, even the reruns and marathons, were an event to behold. When I got into college, and could afford a VCR, I had programmed my VCR to tape the late night talk shows and a few other ritual shows every night, and had one six-hour tape I'd abuse for this purpose.
These days, I still have a few ritual shows, like the Stewart-Colbert news hour on Comedy Central, and the Friday night Sci-Fi Channel lineup.
I'm the new kind of TV snob: I only watch new episodes, without ads. Haven't watched an ad in months except at bars or when away from my house for more than a day because of holidays/vacation. After all that, it's easy to forget that shows are in constant syndication reruns. I don't get to watch all the shows I want, because the source just doesn't release everything reliably, but since I never just watch TV on auto-pilot, come what may as far as reruns, I watch shows. Sure, I watch a helluva lot of TV, but I feel like I don't watch more than I used to-- I just see more.
TiVo works as a good way to stay active. Ahhhhh!!! Commercial!!! FFWD it! FFWD!!!!
But yeah, the whole trashing TV thing does come off either as elitist or just plain annoying. Those people also generally feel out of it when it comes to the world.