At the risk of starting a riot, I have to disagree. Here me out...
It was because of an aversion to AA that I initially picked up the Trimpkey book years ago. What stopped me from moving beyond reading to application then was the anti AA rhetoric. I didn't get anything out of it because I wrote off the message as some bloke just pissed off at AA, which - to me - was neither here nor there. It just seemed to me that the author was more bent on breaking down AA than showing folks his alternative. Actually, I think it kind of hurt me because back then I agreed fully with Jack so I really didn't need to go through the paint by numbers part. I just took his writings on AA as redundant, unnecessary, and a little monotonous. I'd add that for someone not hip or not interested in recovery-ism (or the philosophy of AA), Jack's purveying message on AA can certainly fall on def ears.
After many years, I came to need sobriety to save my life. 'Bottom', as it were. AA helped me then, when nothing could, even in spite of my reservations and contentious opinion of it. RR could not have helped then, because I was beyond rational thought. Rational Recovery was entirely useless because by the time I needed something I was too punch drunk to read through it. My state was one of completely battered confusion. As such, the BB spoke to my soul, it spoke to my desperation in ways that few things ever have. I listened because it was talking to the ME that was knocked down fully, someone not able to pick myself up at all. However, as I delved deeper, AA taught me something integral through the act of surrender they required. It taught me that my opinions and personal slants were not always correct or even necessary. That I should be looking to take everything that comes into my purview with objectivity and a non-judgmental open mind. It truly was an entire psychic change, a new and much better way of living mindfully.
Fast forward to a point when I was 'out of the trenches' (as it were) I revisited RR. Basically I have TU to thank for my renewed interest. Low and behold I saw something extremely important within the RR book that I had missed. AVRT. Of course I'm still learning the finer points, but I now use AVRT quite successfully, and it is never contentious and not once has it interrupted or caused a conflict with my inherent belief that I am powerless over alcohol. The dichotomy is just not present, ever. Recognizing my addictive voice and Beast and knowing how to shut the damnedable things up, it is extremely useful, and as such I use it almost daily to quiet any internal dialogues, making it dead simple to recognize and objectify what AA calls "stinking thinking".
Seriously, once the program bashing and us/them paradigm is nullified, something I find very easy to do, both systems are not working at cross purposes at all. In fact when I look at both programs from that perspective I find many parallels within both AA and AVRT. Sure there is a fundamental polarization between the 2 teachings, as you've pointed out, but it only takes my ignoring such fodder to successfully apply the inherent qualities of both systems.
I'd even go so far as to say that now, with a number of months between me and my last drink, I use AVRT more for the daily mini-battles inside my skull, and the steps of AA as my "way of life". Working the steps each day I commit myself to something beyond ME. It's made me humble, selfless, and offers me a refreshing perspective, one that I was not ever exposed to as an alcoholic. It takes my ego out of most equations, shows me how dangerous an ego run riot actually is, and let's me see when I have missed the mark in my daily travels, sometimes doing so in beautifully poetic ways. AVRT, on the other hand, successfully offers me a specific skill-set necessary to instantly recognize and objectify the part of my dis-ease that is ever present. It's that part of the alcoholic mind that always lobs grenades at me, telling me drinking ISN'T the bad idea that it actually is.
Only speaking for myself of course, but within that preface, AA was the 'carpet bombing' I needed back when I was being overrun and wounded. AA was napalm. AVRT became the laser guided smart bombs that really started to become useful later on, after the opposing force was weakened by AA. Now, sober for some months and quite content, AA has become more like an occupational force, keeping a generalized peace, while AVRT remains the spec-ops guys that can quickly - and with deadly efficiency - root out any insurgent aggression and annihilate it.
That may not make sense for some, and it is very over-simplified if not comical, but for me I can't think of a more apt analogy - especially considering I just watched "Saving Private Ryan" again this weekend lol.