Not really a minority on forums seeing as how Garbodor made itself in the top 5 of every worst pokemon list for several decently large game review websites, namely 1up. Not even just Garbodor at that point, a lot of Generation 5 pokemon were panned by anyone that didn't have a check coming from Game Freak if they said they liked them. They're decently concerned with the community seeing as how if they didn't keep an ear to what people liked nobody would play the games.
Fair enough there, but then... what does Garbodor have to do with the number of legendaries created? It's not a legendary, after all.
As for it being an impact on the number - I doubt it. I would also wager that if you made such polls after the release of any gen, Pokemon towards the top of the disliked list would be from said gen. And that's not surprising - many people don't often like change, have nostalgia for older gens, have not had time to get 'used' to the Pokemon, etc etc. This gen has a number of pokes disliked and is no exception. Klefki, for example, had quite the shouting at when it was first sighted from leaks. OMG A
keychain Pokemon? Game freak are so unoriginal! Using stuff on their desk for inspiration! Etc. (I'm not exaggerating on such claims, either...). And never mind the final starter forms.
I also don't agree that if they made 100+ Pokemon new designs instead of ~ 70, that people would stop buying the games because they don't like a few Pokemon. Heck, I don't like all the Pokemon of each gen. I'm sure hardly anyone likes every single Pokemon a new gen offers. But this doesn't mean all the new Pokemon suck. I doubt gen 5 took up most of the top 100 disliked Pokemon, for instance, in such polls. =p
So basically, I still don't see any evidence that Game Freak have decided to make less Pokemon, particularly less legendaries, because of some polls with Garbador and a couple other friends in the disliked pile. And tbh, I'd say that's a bit of an exaggeration of yourself that nearly everyone hated gen 5 Pokemon in general. =p