I haven’t read the Polygon article (mostly because I’m not interested in Rise of Tomb Raider or AC Syndicate), but personally if I had to make a list I’d omit fighting games and anything with a character creator. Instead I’d focus on games the developers had to write around a singular established female protagonist, and you could probably still get a bunch in the time frame between the 80’s and today.
That said, the real issue is of course that proportionally speaking, deliberately written playable game characters probably skew overwhelmingly male (and white). Hollywood right now has a problem where producers will literally throw out most scripts with female leads except in certain genres. In light of this, you have to admit it’s still kind of a big deal when a woman is in the spotlight of a major AAA release.

I feel the games press in its traditional structure is kind of declining anyway. More and more people are turning to word of mouth — either from friends or things like streamers — rather than supposed "experts". I'm interested to see what happens; I feel we're due a big upheaval of some description.

Big in comparison to what? Its readership seems fairly inactive, gauging from the numerical average and nature of comments per post. The most active topics appear to be editorials, and the responses seem to be predominantly negative in subject and tone. I get the impression the people most invested in the site are the people who dislike it.

In a sense, the people who would rather it not exist continue to perpetuate its existence.

As for your personal slight, I cannot comment as I have no information on the matter. However, as an outside observer, anyone interested in making a successful career out of this hobby would almost be advised to avoid employment at sites like Polygon. More lucrative and influential opportunities exist outside the 'traditional' structure.

I don't actually actively read Polygon, because I know it's not very good. It does, however, get brought up a lot on social media, since it is, for some reason, one of the bigger sites out there.

The reason I bring it up is primarily frustration that the games press of 2015 can't do any better — and bitterness that I was muscled out of the business for being enthusiastic and passionate about games, while those who still have a job writing about them just post cynical bullshit that often isn't true in the first place. It doesn't actually cause me stress and anxiety as such, but it provides convenient writing prompts 🙂