As with the majority of architects, I only know JN's courses from what I read and see on here. But despite that, and despite my fondness for certain kinds of courses, I always find myself defending JN. (And one interview amongst literally thousands doesn't tell me anything in particular one way or another).
Partly it's because I like him as a person; he seems a very decent man. Partly though it's on principle -- the principle being that JN has as much right as any other working architect to have/strive for a) his own ideas and ideals about what golf courses are and should be, b) his own preferences and tendencies based on personal experiences with the game of golf, and c) his own hierarchy of values, i.e. how he himself ranks in order of importance elements such as happy clients, quality designs, satisfied golfers, architectural legacy, money, a thriving business etc etc.
From everything I've ever read, JN's golf courses "work", and they work on several levels. If, as it seems to me, he has tended to design courses on which very good players can score well and on which hacks can get around without too much trouble, and courses that look and are maintained to a level that helps golfers feel their money (in high green fees) was well spent -- well, that seems to me far from a crime; in fact, it seems like one of several viable and understandable and defensible approaches to gca in the 21st century.
(FYI - I used to play with a fellow who was one of the worst (and shortest hitting) golfers I ever played with; we played/mucked our way around a fine golden age courses in California, and then he was up in Toronto and played the sometime home of the Canadian Open, Glen Abbey...and later told me that he loved it, as it was the easiest course he'd ever played.)
Peter