The problem I have is that if I say something that sounds positive about the Sequences, that's going to turn my friends off, since they already know I think well of them.

For example, they may be turned off if you came out and said "The sequences really aren't the parochial ramblings of an intellectual outcast, they are totally in accord with mainstream scientific thinking". But "mostly not original" conveys much of the same message by making a concession to the orthodoxy.