I am going to take the opportunity to say I personally dislike that canned comment a lot!

[Here is a completely awesome answer framed as a suggestion...](http://askubuntu.com/a/152003/527764)

However, when the person answering actually doesn't seem to know what they are talking about, I usually downvote and comment to say something like "have you tested this?". If the suggestion is bad, then I vote to delete the answer, and if it [misses the point of the question](http://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/15877/what-should-i-or-we-do-about-answers-that-obviously-miss-the-point-of-the-ques) I flag it. If I know the suggestion is good, I will upvote (and edit if needed)!

"Use y because x is broken" could be a perfectly fine answer if x is really broken, and "Use y because it's better than x" would be a perfectly fine answer with justification. Or, it could be completely wrong, which would merit a downvote and comment, or, again if it misses the point of the question, an NAA flag.

My point is, neither of the cases you mention would automatically imply a particular course of action in my opinion - you have to decide on a case-by-case basis what to do!

Once you've decided on the right action, and the right action seems to be a downvote, then the fact that you don't feel like losing a point seems like a baaaad reason to use a flag instead. Use flags... [when the post deserves a flag.](http://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/15888/how-do-i-flag-correctly)