Lets face it, people hate soul memory because they can't twink the shit out of a character and then go invade other people's games risk-free. There's no other reason to dislike it. If you don't mind fair fights then you can invade all you want, you just can't give yourself overwhelming odds as easily any more.
I never played the previous Souls games online because of that horseshit, it was just too disheartening getting invaded by twinks. I play DS2 online all the time, and thanks to tons of practice in the Bell Keepers and Rat King covenants I routinely destroy invaders. They come in and see a guy dressed like a Gnome wielding a mace and they think "Easy prey" right up until the point I smash the shit out of them

. Feels good man.