I feel the need to disagree. Consider the most recent, Ratatouille. Creativity and the creative process are remarkably difficult things to deal with in film, and this one works phenomenally well. As such, I don't feel they do patronize the audience. The emotional high point of the film is a defense of cultural criticism...how likely is that, in any film, animated or otherwise? The Incredibles and Ratatouille together constitute a rather exciting defense of excellence that you will rarely find in film, perhaps the most self-consciously democratic of mediums. There's some real nuance in these films, and they're also genuinely funny through their use of character humor, which isn't the easiest thing to come by. The good vs. bad elements that appear in these films are usually merely background to the characters in them. Yes, there has been a tendency for most of them to be buddy films in one way or another (although I'd argue that in itself is refreshing in opposition to a love narrative or a good vs. bad narrative), but even there, they've been consistently exploring the ways in which the buddy film can work, from the delusion-based antagonism of Toy Story to the Seven Samurai-charged Bug's Life to the third wheel child element of Monsters Inc., and the partnership requisite for our leads in Ratatouille.
And it's not as thought the technique isn't well-used, nor that immersion into a different world isn't something that counts. Leaving aside entirely the advances that were made between Toy Story and the later films, the realms they inhabit are far different. Toy Story and its sequel were basically in a real world, as was A Bug's Life. Finding Nemo was appropriately whimsical and colorful for what was partially a buddy film-twist on the overcoming of anxiety, while The Incredibles fully inhabited the world of James Bond, superheroes, and the mod era.
You're entitled to your opinion, obviously, especially since you are one of the most consistently well-arguing Raveners I've known, but I do feel you've got this one wrong. The Pixar canon thus far has been infused with a genuine sense of the loss and disappoints inherent in human life, even though their characters may be toys, bugs, or a rat with a penchant for fine cuisine, and I'm eager to see what else they produce - especially Brad Bird.