I don't think bringing up someone's past behavior is at all irrelevant or a cheap tactic. The main issue I had wasn't that there is a paper that has holes in it, but that the sites that have been covering it clearly didn't do any referencing first. Even if the journalists and people covering this paper weren't scientists, they could & should have evaluated it for significance. I don't know what to say other than that there are a lot of things here that should stand out to non-experts as suspect. People who cover this should make even a cursory effort to find out if what they're reporting on is real. A part of that is determining if the source is legitimate, and a part of THAT is looking at their source's past behavior & claims.

[edit] specifically, the personal-website-masquerading-as-real-organization-page, unheard of journal, and exaggerated credentials are all the hallmarks of people who come up with proofs for perpetual motion, ways to trisect an angle with a straightedge, and how time travel is possible. If you work publicly in science, or are just listed on the faculty page of a university department, your email gets bombarded with these papers constantly.