I mostly agree with the article, and my favorite songs are mostly the ones from 8 bit or 16 bit games (Chrono Trigger is my favorite soundtrack ever). That said, I see three reasons to explain how un-memorable most soundtracks are these days:
1) Action: There's much more stuff going on than there used to be in the past. Back in the 8/16bit days, we had barebones graphics and sound, and music was much more prominent, especially in the slower-paced games. I recall reading from a videogame music composer that when they were making turn-based RPGs, they had to use more active, striking, music to keep the players engaged, whereas with more action-oriented games, it can take a seat back and let the game action itself set the tempo for the player. It makes sense.
2) Repetition: We (well, I, at least) tend to spend a lot less time with individual games nowadays. It was harder to have access to games, and back when we were "analog", we consumed media at a much slower pace. We used to play games for weeks, repeat single levels for hours upon hours upon hours until we were able to advance. I have the Rolling Thunder (NES) firmly ingrained in my mind because of that. And who doesn't remember the Top Gear (NES) iconic tunes? I spent months playing around with "build" for Duke Nukem 3D, playing and replaying levels, and I can hum all songs from the game's first episode effortlessly. The town music from the first Diablo is part of my psyche at this time.
3) Intention: It's not in most of the current developers' intentions to make a strong, identifiable melody/harmony, they simply treat the soundtrack as background noise intended to subliminarly increase or release player tension, so they're not really trying to make great songs, just psychological triggers.
That said, the modern soundtracks that I can remember best are basically songs I've heard over and over and over again continuously: soundtracks to grand strategy games, like Civilization or Total War (spent hundreds of hours on each, listening to the same songs). Some songs from Guild Wars (the only one mmorpg-ish game which I played for long hours, over 1000, in fact). And recently, the songs from Pushmo/Crashmo, the 3DS downloadable puzzle game, but that's a lot closer to traditional melody-crafting (I played them for a combined time of over 30 hours over the last month. Great little games).
Other than repetition, the other way to make a song memorable these days, I find, is to just include something that shakes up the aural landscape. A complete change of tone, or the inclusion of vocals on and otherwise instrumental only soundtrack. It works in TV/Movies: watch Collateral ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369339/ ) and tell me the song segment in the middle of the movie isn't something to remember; and who else had goosebumps all over when they heard Johnny Cash in the first season finale for Terminator - Sarah Connor Chronicles (warning: spoilers in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIIFQ42s_tM )? It works in videogames, too.
All that said, I do believe we have great composers in the current industry, Jeremy Soule being the most recognizable name, and Jeff van Dyck being another of my favorites.
