The other side, mostly consisting of yuppie home cooks and anti-traditionalists, argued that Batali's position is deplorable and he is consigning a generation of people to diabetes. They were advocating that you should load your pasta with vegetables and other "stuff" so as to have a more balanced diet. (I am summarizing this argument as opposed to linking to it because I've searched the intertoobs far and wide and can't find it now.)
I believe Mario Batali is right because the other side is missing the whole picture. In my experience with my Italian relatives, and in my trips to Italy, I have found that pasta is almost always "just pasta." By this I mean that that pasta is served by itself. There are often various meats or vegetables cooked in the sauce, but they rarely are mixed in with the pasta and served together. At dinner time you have your pasta, your meat, maybe a vegetable or a salad, but they are all separate. This is why Italians can eat their pasta by itself and still not go blind from diabetes or become obese. Two or three helpings of just pasta is terrible for you, but if you also have some meat, some green vegetables sautéd in garlic and wash it all down with copious amounts of delicious, antioxidant-rich red wine, you're getting a nicely balanced meal.
I suppose the yuppy side of the argument was bristling at the idea of just eating a bowl of starch. As I said, I agree with them that such a thing would be bad for your health, but I don't agree that you should dump all the other stuff in with the pasta. If done right it should be delicious enough to be enjoyed on its own.
A good pasta dish is about the balance between sauce and pasta. Flavorful, perfectly cooked pasta can't save a bad jar of Kroger-brand, high fructose corn syrup-filled tomato sauce, and beautifully balanced sauce at a nice restaurant can't save a pile of overcooked mush. Listen to Mario.
Bravissimo.
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