Al,
I suspect the individuals that gave you the thrashing had lots of opinions but very little, if any, experience. Like you, I have never seen any negative impact from this process, and I have cleaned a bunch of guns. There are better products than 0000 steel wool, but they are not significantly better and they are usually difficult to find. One of these products is called "Big 45 Frontier Metal Cleaner". It is made from a special metal alloy and looks like one of those coarse metal pot scrubbers, but according to the packaging it "Does twice the job of steel wool, but will not harm the finest blued surface". I have used it and can confirm that it doesn't harm the blue. They have a website
www.big45metalcleaner.com