After finishing the article I still don't understand what were the reasons to scorn Tux. Maybe OP should have given an example of a good mascot for the readers to get the point.

I'm still quite happy with Tux though, it's a sober mascot that's very simple/minimal, and is easily recognizable.

Yes. Tux was one of the reasons I got in touch with Linux when I was young.

On the topic of mascots, the FreeBSD and Darwin logos follow the BSD Daemon, nicknamed Beastie, from 1984, more than they follow Tux.