As usual mindless rubbish on STW.
Take a look at Bike Radar, MTBR reviews.com, cyclingnews.com – all of them agree the Monarch is level if not better than the Fox RP23.
165×38 is a standard size the Monarch is available in that. 165×28 is a typo.
Alot of people are quick to critisize – but i doubt most people have actually ridden one. I think there an excellent match to the new Blackbox damped RS forks as they have the same high and low speed compression circuits.