It fails utterly and completely right out of the starting gate:
This was something Bob Harras tried to push, and it's one of the many, MANY ways in which he demonstrated his TOTAL misunderstanding of the characters. It was NEVER about Parker versus Osborn - it was ALWAYS about Spider-Man versus the Goblin. Neither Norman nor Peter had ANY reason to hate each other, until the death of Gwen Stacy (another character who ALWAYS sucked - YES, I SAID IT).
And what's interesting about this article is that its few good arguments on behalf of Norman have all been utterly invalidated by current continuity, since now, EVERYONE KNOWS that he was the Green Goblin, but EVERYONE LOVES HIM ANYWAY.
Basically, Norman Osborn is what happens when writers try to combine two really disparate supervillain archetypes - in this case, Lex Luthor and the Joker - and wind up turning both sides of the character's personality into trite deus ex machinas. HOW can Norman Osborn have fucked with Peter Parker in so many probability-defying ways? Because like Lex Luthor, he's RICH and POWERFUL! But WHY would Norman Osborn devote so much time, effort and expense to fucking with Peter Parker that much? Because he's CRAZY and MEAN! Fucking YAWN. And, oh, look, he's YET ANOTHER character whose aberrant psychology can be written off as the symptom of an abusive father! It's not like THAT'S become a cliche excuse, or anything!
The ONLY worthwhile things that Norman Osborn EVER did were a) kill off Gwen Stacy and b) DIE. There's a reason why "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" is the ONLY Norman Osborn story that's universally known and praised - it marked both the beginning and end of his relevance.
P.S. Earth X was terrible, too, but I didn't recognize, until now, how much it's to blame for the current characterization of Norman Osborn.