I grew up in Italy but I live now in Spain.
If there's something I understood from living in Italy is that food in Italy is not only food, but also a container of bias and emotional investments.
Regarding food, people really take sides and hardly consider alternatives.
On the other side, probably this is the reason why it's quite hard to find mediocre food in Italy.
Yes, you are right about this and tourist traps are a global phenomenon.
In Barcelona, for instance, in places where tourists don't go, restaurants might be really bad, which never happened to me in Italy.
There's also a culture for keeping food as a family/friends value, which I don't see everywhere else.
On the other side, probably this is the reason why it's quite hard to find mediocre food in Italy.