Well dang, that sucks. Something Awful circa 2003 really shaped my sense of humor as a teen. Photoshop Phriday was something I and all my friends waited for each week. In my opinion this deserves the black bar.
By all accounts, the good things about Something Awful were in spite of Kyanka rather than because of him. He neglected the site for many years before selling it. He was also a terrible person who serially abused his wives and girlfriends. His site was very influential (in good and bad ways), but that doesn't mean he is someone we should canonize or mourn.
I think the one clever thing that Lowtax did was require the membership fee to post. I think this worked as a really good filter away from people who are just going to post spam and random crap all over the place.
Honestly, the thing I most remember Lowtax specifically for is his Gaming Garbage YouTube channel, particularly the first two years of his collaboration with Schmorky. Those were extremely funny videos that lacked all pretense, and sadly once it was determined that Schmorky was horrible and Lowtax seemed to have increasing trouble finding collaborators, the channel got pretty unwatchable. Still, the old videos from 2013-2014 are classic, and they're worth checking out.