He said that Winter needed more work. He was just mad that they dropped it to keep working on shit like Crazy Tonight.
MOS might not have been a hugely successful lead single, but it would have earned them a lot more respect. Certainly wouldn't have come off like Vertigo Part II. And probably would have been more representative of the album.
Passengers is a great album. It's not filled with verse-chorus-verse songs; that doesn't make it a misstep. The whole point of it was to convey atmospheres for (mostly) fictional films and it did that well.
They would get a lot of flak for that "U2 does Coldplay" faux string intro. And stay as far away as possible from that Edge automaton sound...
Respect ? Maybe a wink from Pitchfork and the like...but not at all something you'd need as a lead single after the longest break of your career.
U2 can do some things very well. Certain other things not so much - they should just let Eno handle atmospherics on his own next time.