I think its possible to have a good software patent. However in my quite long experience in the software industry, I quite literally have never seen a software idea that was actually patented and which convincely passed the "skilled in the art" novelty test. Nearly everything I have seen would be logically thought of by someone even moderately skilled in the art if presented with the same requirements. So I think the conclusion is, even if there are a few "good apples" if the barrel is full of 98% "bad apples", you really should throw out the whole barrel.