My only real point is that any one type of guitar magnet should not be written off across the board. In an ideal world, the magnet used and the coil specifications work together to achieve a certain design goal. However, that isn't always the case. Sometimes crap just gets slapped together. As mentioned, there is a lot of correlation between ceramics and cheap-ass pickups...and many mistake this for ceramics being the cause of the crappy tone. Yet other companies make very well designed and sweet sounding pickups using ceramic magnets. And still more companies make very harsh sounding pickups using alnico magnets.
I did not say, nor do I believe, that different magnets don't have an affect on the tone of a pickup. That would be a crazy belief. I said that one type of magnet doesn't sound one way in all pickups. That's what I mean by the magnet itself has no "tone," period. You can't take a ceramic and accurately say "It sounds such and such a way, no matter what pickup you put it in," nor an alnico.
