Word. I'm generally not a fan of "alternate reality" AUs--meaning fics in which the characters are taken out of JKR's 'verse and thrown in another one althogether (e.g. Regency England, the Middle Ages, or the modern world but like, in a regular high school and not Hogwarts) and are usually not magical. Even if the characters are still (reasonably) IC, it's so unlike HP that I figure I might as well be reading original fic.

Perhaps fans of such fics, if they're well-written, appreciate them the way we would appreciate a good original fic. Or maybe they're just not picky--if it has anything to do with HP at all, even if that resemblance is purely in the names of the characters, they'll still fangirl it. Meh, I don't get it, either.