I've always personally
disliked McIlroy's oft-quoted conclusion (emph. mine):
> Knuth has shown us here how to program intelligibly, but not wisely. I buy the discipline. I do not buy the result. He has fashioned a sort of industrial-strength Fabergé egg—intricate, wonderfully worked, refined beyond all ordinary desires, a museum piece from the start.
Well, yes – absolutely.
If you read the initial column[1] pre-McIlroy's response, you'll see that Knuth is not presenting a word-counting solution, but instead the concept of literate programming and how intertwining code and prose can be better for the programmer. Knuth isn't trying to count words, he's trying to teach you a different way to develop, and he's doing it by showing an example that has been simplified so the average person can chew on it.
I'm not sure if the popular interpretation of "ivory tower Knuth versus tactical genius McIlroy" is a modern take or if that was how it was received when the column was published, but it feels very unfair to present it as such today.
[1]: https://doi.org/10.1145/5689.315644