But when he wrote that stuff he was basing the "obsolete" statement on the monolothic kernel and x86 specificity. Those key aspects of the architecture _were_ obsolete back then.

I think when he wrote that he was right about the design being outdated.

Its just that Linux became popular and some of those design aspects like the x86 specificity were upgraded to newer ways of doing things.

Still monolithic kernel though. But just because something works doesn't mean that its an up-to-date design. Look at how popular fairly heavy and large PC workstations still are today.