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Pope St. Pius X:
Are these nothing more than pious platitudes?

I wouldn't call the Saint's words platitudes. 

I wouldn't call the Saint's words platitudes.

Certainly, however, they are not absolute, since one should certainly find fault with the activities of certain popes, the ones, for instance, who had mistresses, or the ones who were weak in defending the faith.  St. Catherine of Siena certainly disagreed with the Avignon popes.

Pope St. Pius X:
Are these nothing more than pious platitudes?

I honestly disagree with Pope St Pius X here, with the caveat that I'm not exactly sure what he meant by it.  

But it kind of seems to me like the Post Vatican *I* popes, with the best of intentions I'm sure, emphasized the most maximal interpretation of papal authority, which kind of makes sense when you've got a conservative Pope surrounded by modernist subordinates.

But I think now you're seeing the problems with this kind of thinking, when the papacy is also controlled by the modernists.  I realize your take is a bit different, but the standard sede take sort of seems like special pleading.  Like 'well we always have to obey a *true* Pope, but since we can't obey every word he says, clearly there's no Pope!"  Its almost like a person concluding that once his parents become abusers, instead of amending his opinion of parents, he concludes that he must not have any parents at all.

Now I agree with your point about respect TBH.  I think if Pope St Pius X is truly correct here, you'd have to go with full blown Novus Ordism or full blown sedevacantism, but that sort of seems unlikely to me.