Cranky is just in denial. :)
Its called confusion.
We have two comparisons showing very different results.
While I completely believe with you that 16:9 and 1280x720 in particular are the lead 'default' being that they have stated that the platform which they developed for in the beginning was the 360.
And really they have done a pretty good job with the widescreen.
Any non Hor± screens could simply be overlooked by the programmer, whether the glass is half full or half empty, its still not as good as a full glass.
But I do not and will never believe the 'developers vision' was for the lockpick (or any of Tanuki's shots in question) to scale vertically rather than horizontally like the rest of the game.
What I think this needs is other people to post their experiences with the screens in question. I would but im not planning on picking it up for a while. I mean it really is quite the mystery especially if other people have conflicting results.