I don't think they "hate" launches, they just didn't want anything to do with them until the technology improved. Remember that when they wouldn't do the launch for Hulk back in the mid/late 90's Premier and Intamin's LIM/LSM launches were still very unreliable and couldn't produce the power required for the larger B&M trains to be able to launch. Remember Superman at SFMM was only built in 1997 (abut the same time Hulk would have been in development) and for YEARS suffered downtimes and never could climb the tower more than halfway? I had front row seats at my old home park to see Batman & Robin: The Chiller from 1997 which was delayed almost a full year and never operated as designed. In 1998 Volcano opened late at half capacity because Intamin still hadn't figured it out. As far as I know it really wasn't until 2004 that a truly reliable LIM/LSM coaster finally came along with The Mummy and I believe even it had it's issues.
B&M's goal has always been reliability and they didn't want to sell any product they didn't feel was up to their standards. Since then we've seen the LIM/LSM launch systems become much more reliable-- Thunderbird (I assume) has been a success with acceptable downtime. It's interesting they went with smaller 2 abreast seating on these Surf Coaster trains (I assume to reduce weight) and probably further improve the reliability. They let the other builders work out the bugs and make a system that really worked.