I certainly didn't mean to imply that you shouldn't express your opinion, arb. I used the word "complained" just in the sense that you said you were disappointed in the Steps, and your "complaint" against them--what disappointed you--was that the houses and gardens were small.

I'd be glad to have the word "complaint" applied to my own reasons when I explain why I think something isn't all it's cracked up to be. What I was trying to express above was that in this case, what you saw as a negative, I saw as a positive. Like you, I'd like to express my own opinion without people who hold different views getting upset at me for doing so.

Degas~In my list of things I love about Sf, I have included the Castro Movie Theatre. I think it is especially fun to view old Joan Crawford or Barbara Stanwyck films surrounded by an interactive audience yelling things like "Slap her, slap her now!". It's a beautiful old theatre and the organ playing is a high spot.
Regarding Topman's comments, I can't tell "which side he's on" so to speak.
Yes the Castro is gay (hooray despite the plague) and has been the "ground zero" for many wonderful things and people across time and memory such as the AIDS quilt,Coming Home Hospice,Harvey Milk, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and on and on.
Do check out the "steps" in either neighborhood. Going to either or both will afford you a taste of SF in a very good way.

Degas,
Don't know exactly when you are coming to S.F. or what your cinematic taste runs to, but the Castro Theater is running a Bergman retrospective in August. Nothing like all that Swedish angst blown up bigger than life on a huge screen. Myself, I want to see Max von Sydow playing chess with Death in "Seventh Seal". Someone in charge at this theater also loves Kurosawa. At least once every two years or so, they've played "Seven Samurai" and/or "Rashomon". I've been known to cancel other plans so that I could watch Mifune swashbuckle all evening. Seriously, the Castro Theater is as much loved as the Tuschinski in Amsterdam, and is one of the ever-fewer places to catch old movies on a full-sized screen.