My perspective based on The Post story: this was a monomaniacal obsession with serious consequences for his family and for himself as well.
Of course, it's difficult to comment on his psyche not knowing him (and maybe it would be presumptuous anyway), but presumably a lot of the information came from people who knew him well and/or were related. Many of them came across as disliking the guy and his hobby due to his fixation on that project.
So, the facts are that he spent a lot of money (most of it lost to his hiers) and appears to have alienated and offended in equal amounts. A sad story, in some ways...