>>First of all, the use of the generic "he" has not been "invented" by these gentlemen, it is a
>>cultural/linguistic development where certain words are used as placeholders as default
>>for an unknown, and that long before those two people were even born.
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>I've also observed that many foreign languages assign gender to things. The pencil is a he, but the ship is a she, etc.
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>I've found myself lately either going out of my way to re-write the sentence, or to just use "he" and be done with it. :-) Perhaps I too am becoming a curmudgeon.

That is correct. In German it would be the most difficult thing to start changing things into gender neutral statements, although that does not keep people from trying. Consider "Der Benutzer" is in English "The User". "The" in English is gender neutral, so there is a clear advantage in English saying "The user - he or she clicks the button". But in German that would result in "Der Benutzer - er oder sie klickt auf den Knopf". But since "Der" already denotes a male noun, you cannot refer to it later as "sie" which is female. So you have to say "Der Benutzer der Die Benutzerin - er oder sie klickt auf den Knopf".
And then comes the feminist groups which protest against having the female form always appear second. So they have to write it above each other, otherwise it would be discriminating.