Doug's first appearance had him as a hacker, sharing it as an early bond with Kitty pryde and was the first manifestation of his ability.
I'm not sure if you read New mutants V3 or any of the comics since his Resurrection in Necrosha, but he hasn't been the complaining and low self-esteemed person he was in his original run at all.
I can only really think of one time he's been somewhat like that since his return and that was when he was annoyed at Gambit and QS for getting all the credit for saving Georgia. An act he later rectified and apologized to Georgia for.
The whole repetitive flaws for each New mutant (Being the 'weak whining one for Doug) was one of Claremont's low points imho with and future writers have pretty much abandoned these flaws in most of the new mutants. You don't really hear Cannonball whinging about not being able to turn every three issues anymore or Dani questioning her leadership ability.
Having power to read not only verbal language, but other forms of communication is much more interesting than reducing him to being a babelfish. Doug has always been able to read body language as seen in the original run. But he hasn't really been portrayed as a 'fighter' any more than any other of the intelligentsia of the X-men.
In New mutants Volume three Doug applied his power in a variety of interesting and different ways: reading magical languages to cast spells, deciphering Asgardian texts with Loki, communicating with alien beings etc.
I don't follow the logic of reducing a character to their basic power and stripping away parts of their personality such as his interest in computers, failure to succeed in relationships ( seriously, he's had so many love interests) and his symbiotic friendship with Warlock .
To me it'd be like saying that writers should stop writing Emma with her Diamond skin and remove her snarky stuck up personality and focus on her telepathy as her main character point?
Doug was originally killed off because the artists found him annoying to draw as had nothing cool or interesting to do in the background of fight scenes. You turn him back into Google Translate and it'll just happen again.
Sorry if this came across as ranty?
But I do agree that something obviously didn't click, I just don't think Doug was the responsible party as he wasn't really in it very much at all.