You are obviously correct, but I don't know that it really matters.

As I see it, the movement is about pointing out that the most useless dumbest biggest failure of a mega corporation is actually great in light of their current practices.

Why does it matter whether they would have messed it up if they implemented it today?

Restated: the point is not that clippy is great. The point is that he sucked, and that he is great relative to what kinds of products Microsoft is creating today.