why was Everett so scandalous and ridiculed
No idea, I don't find MWI ridiculous, just not instrumentally useful, given that you still have to combine unitary evolution with the Born rule to get anything done. This is a philosophical difference with EY, who believes that territory is in the territory, not in the map.
... territory is in the territory.
Umm. That sounds... non-controversial. Did I read that wrong somehow?
http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1103
Eliezer's gung-ho attitude about the realism of the Many Worlds Interpretation always rubbed me the wrong way, especially in the podcast between both him and Scott (around 8:43 in http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/2220). I've seen a similar sentiment expressed before about the MWI sequences. And I say that still believing it to be the most seemingly correct of the available interpretations.
I feel Scott's post does an excellent job grounding it as a possibly correct, and in-principle falsifiable interpretation.