It might be, but in the outboard motor community they've proven very popular. They appeal to a market that remember the good old days of two-stroke power, and when they're told that two-strokes are now just as clean, and are in fact used by the guys who patrol Lake Tahoe against "over-polluting engines" they buy into it pretty fast.
I think in the car market, which is made largely of "average people," they will have never heard of a two-stroke and it can thus be marketed as new, small, powerful, and clean. By the way, here's an interesting bit of trivia, which I think I picked up from one of the ye olde articles on this site. Orbital makes a lot of the injector technology for these outboards (though not Evinrude, if I recall) and they have received interest in varying degrees from automakers like GM, Chrysler, Ford, Toyota, Nissan, etc. Honda isn't on the list, even though they have more "history" with two-strokes than any of the others. Hmm...
There are exceptions, of course. My friend's family up in Canada bought this monstrous, anemic Yamaha four-stroke outboard for their boat. At one point, I saw a guy running a Mercury Opti-Max (clean, DI two-stroke) with the same power but with half the size. I pointed out that he was running a two-stroke, and the reply was, "Yick, I can almost smell it from here." I couldn't quite bring myself to correct them, but in hindsight I should've.
For what it's worth, this friend is in the market for a dirt-bike, and because I'm the one who got him into it, he's looking for a '77-'82 Husky 250.