In all fairness, the Gizmodo article was pretty well researched and informative. It was more like an anti-hype article - because that's what the headlines were. Interesting things did happen, but the internet was not "in danger" of being down.
What is wrong with making a joke about a penis? Why is that sexist? It would be sexist if they were directing jokes at or objectifying her. If they had said, "Would you like to see my dongle?" or "I'd like to fork your repo, Adria", I would understand her outrage.
I think you're thinking about the OLD web, when adjusting fonts would break table-based, graphic-intensive websites. Unless you want to go even further back - to a time when gif backgrounds of the stars were common and text was displayed through Comic Sans.
I think it is easier to "test" these types of API calls for beginners with the biggest names. Understanding how to connect to Twitter is simple, and those same principles can be used to connect to a wide range of other things. I think, more than anything, connecting to Twitter or Evernote is "safe". Which is good for beginners.
I don't think GPS would show anything substantial if his claim of a "100-space parking lot" where Broder drove in circles is true. I'd be impressed if the GPS was that accurate.
Regardless, I don't think that's a huge sticking point to this story. Broder was at the charging station - it's possible he wanted to see just how long it would take until the battery shut down.