He died  in a battle against  axumblade.

Well, looking at Elop actions, it can't be denied that he always made the best interests of Microsoft, even when he was CEO of Nokia, so the logical consequence isn't that having damaged Nokia, he'll damage MS too, this would be true if he destroyed Nokia without consciously benefitting another company, but since he did it instead, and the benefited company was MS (that could even take over Nokia's mobile division), then the logical consequence is that he'll keep on doing his best for MS again.
So the question should become: what's best for MS, keeping XB division or giving it away? IMVHO keeping it is still the best option. Yes it could perform better, but it's doing reasonably well despite some blunders, and if we consider that XB360, despite the initial big mistakes had, once solved the RRoD disaster, a long life and good sales success with the industry's attach rate record in recent times, XBOne, that started with some PR blunders and high initial costs, but not as high as PS3's ones, and without true disasters as XB360, could do even better in the mid and long term, and the whole division is very important strategically, both to diversify and to benefit from synergies. So, to cut it short, keeping XB should be the best option.
This said, though, I also think that joking about Elop is legit, he was a MS mole at Noka just like Rick Belluzzo was at HP and SGI, it's a job that can make you rich, but it won't make you many friends (except the interested ones).  
Edit: But you're right about journalists, they aren't simple readers like you and me, they can too express their opinion and impression about facts like anybody else, but they should let readers tell them from the facts themselves, and avoid twisting logic, logic tells us he'll do his best for MS, not the opposite.