I wasn’t referring to people like Sagan and Gould.
I see your point, really, but my point is that Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris are currently the face of atheism. Though the bitter psycho atheist types have been with us for a long time, the public face of their movement has (with the exception of O’Hair) always been a person who disagreed with people of faith intellectually but respected their rights. The fact that three guys have made millions publishing the same crap in less than a year about how Christianity should be wiped out means something has changed.