Why the hate for CI still

It really depends what you're comfortable with and what you need.

There's nothing wrong with CI as it stands today, but compared to some other frameworks, it doesn't have as many "built-in" features. Frameworks like Symfony and Laravel seem to have a module/library for everything under the sun which can benefit you if you're building a very complex application or are trying to prototype something quickly.

CI on the other hand is small and pretty darn fast. The bashing you hear is just because other frameworks have risen tremendously in popularity and are seen as standards in a lot of ways between a lot of the new PHP devs.

Whatever floats your boat I guess.

Codeigniter is simply one of the tools you need to learn to be a successful developer. Always add more tools to your coding arsenal!