This is true. I remember having a conversation years ago with Sam Perugini, who was a professor of meteorology at Penn State. At the time he had a forecast for 6-12" of snow for my area, and I excitedly responded about getting up to a foot of snow. He smiled at me and simply said "don't forget my forecast starts with a 6". Simple I know, but that resonated with me from that day forward.
Also - people see a few pictures or a 30 second video and make definitive conclusions about "how lame" a storm is. As many intelligent people are saying, the worst part of the storm went right over the swamp where there isn't a whole lot of people nor a whole lot of buildings, and thus...not a whole lot of pictures and video to view. Thus - "it wasn't that bad" mentality sets in with some.