Dusty is a good man and takes a bad rap because he's (supposedly) bad at things fans can "see", like lineups.
A separate but kind of related rant, but its funny how we heard for years that lineups don't really matter, and even though mountains of data support that, the new trendy line of thought is that lineups are SUPER IMPORTANT, and you have to go get that extra .00002 runs per game with lineup optimization. Meh. I'll never care enough to wrapped up in it. I think making sure players are comfortable where they bat is more important than chasing fractions of runs according to a calculator. If Joey Votto likes batting third, i'm not batting him second because Joe Sheehan thinks it's a good idea.
Anyway, obviously I like Dusty. I don't think it's his fault the Reds haven't advanced in the playoffs. Dusty didn't bobble a routine grounder to third in Game 3 last year, Dusty didn't fail to score runs when Homer Bailey threw a 7 innings of 1-hit, 10 K baseball in the same game. But he sac bunted in some game in May, so it's obviously all his fault.
I do think he had a lot to do with getting the Reds to the playoffs 3 out of 4 years, which is something this franchise hadn't seen in 40 years. While I personally would have let him finish his final year (2014) and evaluated at that point, i'm indifferent to this change. He's been there a long time. I'd give him a B+ overall. Hopefully they keep Bryan Price around.