I remember the OLPC hardware was harshly criticized by industry, and even the audacity of the project was widely attacked. I considered it proof they were just ahead of the market here and industry realized it was behind the 8-ball. Meanwhile OLPC spawned a new form factor, netbooks and tablets did not exist until the OLPC project was first proposed in 2005. Netbooks wouldn't materialize until 2007, and the ipad launched in 2010. Once industry caught up though it was hard to compete against that, and at the end of the day OLPC was about the mission, not the hardware - but you can't have the mission without the hardware. So pivoting to Sugar was a smart move to achieve the mission once industry caught up.
You can certainly make other arguments against some of the ideas of the project and what it was trying to achieve though. It definitely is a Western idea being applied to problems other civilizations may not have an interest in contending with. Water and food security, let alone electricity and communication infrastructure, are still real problems in the areas OLPC was targeted at.