I'm going to skip over some of the most obvious (and tangential) misconceptions that people who don't do crossfit have about crossfit, and instead explain a misconception that many people who DO crossfit have about crossfit that I think is at the core of these others.
I think the biggest misconception that people have about crossfit is that they look at specific workouts or lifts and say "ok, that is crossfit. This other stuff over here isn't crossfit because we don't do it at my box or on the HQ site."
At its heart, I think of Crossfit (and Greg Glassman and Dave Castro I think have both said this, so nothing insightful by me) as a methodology to develop physical fitness and wellness (yes, I know they consider them to be the same), not a static list of things that are "crossfit." My favorite example is the statement that if they found that hula-hooping and rollerskating were found to be effective at developing great performance, that's what you'd see on the HQ site. When something is found to work, you incorporate that into the system and keep refining, iterating, combining in different ways, constantly testing against first principles and measuring outcomes.
I think this is where the misconception of the cult comes in. People on the outside who don't get the point, or talk to crossfitters who don't see the dynamism of the system, just think that everyone follows "the leader." Some of the things about crossfit are fairly integrated throughout the system now that it is recognized that they work (I don't expect anyone to be discovering that eating high amounts of high glycemic load carbs and plodding along at a slow pace for 45 mins is going to be the way to go). However, this is a constantly evolving system that is fine with absorbing anything it finds useful (or parts of it, hello high rep olympic lifts) and building on that.
I would encourage anyone to look at the discussions and lectures on crossfit to see how they have developed over the years. You'll see definitions created (or chosen), objectives stated, metrics established, repeated testing of methods, measuring, and iteration. I think, at its heart, this is what I appreciate so much about crossfit. This is really an application of engineering on the human machine.
Factum CrossFit and Mixed Martial Arts | www.factumutah.com | Jiu Jitsu | Muay Thai | MMA | CrossFit | Wrestling | Salt Lake City, Utah
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