I don't doubt he's still a very smart guy, but I think it's just because his revenue model changed. Print media was concerned with circulation--subscription fees from your readers & the advertisers paid based on how many eyeballs you had reading your publication. It was important to have a good reputation and write thoughtful articles to be a successful tech writer.

Online, the subscription model doesn't work so well any more. You get your revenue on pure ad-impressions and clickthroughs. And the way to get a lot of page impressions is to be controversial.

Anyhoo, just my opinion on what happened w/ Dvorak. He's not dumb, he's just adapting to the changing times.