I'm in favour of kids playing with Lego
Similarly teaching them the principles of programming on the Pi or Arduino is a good thing.
Given that, would kids playing with Lego be worthy of a news article? Would complaining about such a news article be expected on any news site that doesn't deal with children's play as a major theme?
There are some powerful and interesting toys out there. People are coming up with interesting uses for them on a daily basis. Comparatively this phone isn't special (it's not even the first phone to be built out of similar bits), but it involved the Pi, which somehow elevated it to newsworthy.