You can usually be pragmatic but entirely emotional about something specific. Famously, Linus is both pragmatic AND emotional about being pragmatic.

The pragmatic ones are excited about where things are going.

The ones complaining about "slop" are the ones going on vibes now.

LLMs write C for the kernel. He would hate them too if they only outputed C++.

Or, he has a full understanding that, like everything single thing he's ever been involved with in his career, it's a new tech under development and will, as every measure up to now has demonstrated, improve over time. And, as all tech that has ever existed since the beginning of man starts, has somewhat initially limited, but still very practical and real, use in its current state.

Again, he's pragmatic, and has seen countless types and iterations of tech come into existence. The people expecting perfection from the start have no actual experience with the creative process, engineering or design, and and only want progress to stop (because there is, literally, without exception ever existing, no alternative to iteration).