Why not? It's the only moment in time when people are interested in the life achievement of a person. There will never be enough interest for a second discussion that balances his achievements with the negative consequences.
As a society, where else could you show that people shouldn't ignore negative consequences when they seek their success?
Compared to the life of a person, graphics standards seems like a trivial issue. It's like wanting to talk about how he didn't come to complete stop at stop signs while driving.
I'm curious to know how directx has been so bad for humanity.
For one I recommend you read John Carmack interviews from the time directx was being developed. Straight from the horse's mouth. I can assure you, things before directx were not pretty.
Since he contributed to XBox, and each game console since Atari days has used its own API, he couldn't have help to prevent something that never existed in first place.
And as everyone is saying, there are better things to remember and look on a person's life work that is sadly no longer among us.
