Saying good rice is sticky/wet/chewy is not accurate, because different strains serve different purposes. Some rice is meant to be chewy for sushi, others are better used for chazuke. It also used to be a regional thing for which strains were used for which cuisines, eg Hokkaido rice (onigiri) is different than Shikoku rice (sake)

The equivalent is like French wine fans saying no good wine could be produced in California. Obviously that wasn't true, and there was a lot of propaganda trying to lead people to believe that it was.