Actually, I think it's the other way around. Trashing the GoF is a sign of a blind trend follower. Someone who lauds them are bucking the trend and might have interesting things to say about it.
It's kind of the "barber pole" of fashion. Independent of the merits of the thing at hand (it may be GoF, a language, a library, Uncle Bob; even outside programming like research methods; outside science like word use and euphemisms etc), the in-crowd moves faster and arguing against a perceived popular thing can make you (feel/appear like) a trendsetter, a visionary.
It goes in cycles, once the contrarian position becomes established, reverting to the original becomes the new cool. The "it's good actually", or that meme where the dumb guy thinks simple thing X, the mediocre average guy thinks a loooong, elaborate sophisticated thing Y, and the wise guru thinks simple thing X again.
GoF was long enough ago that if you're advocating for it, it seems dated, it seems you're either a novice or someone who came of age at that time and has not read anything new since. It's like someone suddenly discovering Kahneman and cognitive biases and argumentation fallacies and proselytizing on them. Regardless of the merits, culture has moved on, has digested it, built in the good parts, spat out the bad, and the zeitgeist is elsewhere.
