Despite the pissing wars, I don't think it's that anyone is looking to 'create conflict', since I'm betting most people who respected Ritchie also respected Jobs. Rather, I'm guessing it's that everyone who is making statements similar to Pike's sees a 'hardcore scientist guy' ignored next to a 'well-marketed guy', and they are very uncomfortable with that (despite the fact that both of them were more than the stereotypes I'm calling out here).

As for the argument you are calling 'tired', I respectfully disagree. Certainly we use a lot of things whose inventors we don't know - but Ritchie's work was remarkable in that it was fundamentally deeply technical (in a way that is appreciable to hardcore CS folks), extremely wide in scope (in a way that affects people from every walk of life), and recent-enough to warrant more attention from today's society.

As for media - is it really OK for media (and by extension, society) to ignore a person with that kind of impact? I personally feel it shouldn't be culturally acceptable because that breeds a society where hard-science and scientists are not in the public consciousness (ahead of, for example, many random celebrities). Ultimately, the effect of that is more systemic IMHO (few scientists in politics, lots of politicians who can freely ignore science, reduced funding for fundamental scientific research, and so forth).