I don't think it's uniquely former pundits to be fair.
I think it's more related to the fact that the AI Hurling Final is increasingly being seen as a showcase, a spectacular, like it has a life of it's own outside of the rest of the competition.
Can't remember who I heard say it last week, but it was along the lines that it's only in the last 15 years or so that AI finals have become the high scoring "spectacles" that people now tune into see.
I know people both here in Cork and abroad who never watched hurling before who tuned in and were raving about it.
Super quick game with high scores and very few stoppages - what's not to like for someone who's casually tuning in? Ditto for neutrals who show up to watch the final.
It'd be fair to say that if the rules were stringently applied in relation to fouling the whistle would be blown at best every couple of minutes.
It's about as Irish as you can get.
We have rules, we cherry pick some to fastidiously implement in random games early season. The interpretation of the rules is such that a lot of the time you can only discuss if they're being broken by watching a slo mo from several angles. Given the velocity with which the game is played it's sometimes impossible for the match officials to actually see what happened.
We ignore the bending of rules that are there to prevent cynical play, we laud those who go beyond the rules when it comes to defending but clamp down on technical fouls even when they keep the games flowing.
If the definition of a game is "any specific contest, engagement, amusement, computer simulation, or sport involving physical or mental competition
under specific rules" then at some stage the AI is in danger of ceasing to be a game at all
I'm exaggerating, obviously.