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Sorry, coming late to the thread, but was intrigued by the subject. I just finished reading Hamilton's Pandora's Star and was thinking about this exact thing. It made me think of Snowcrash and how extremely different their two visions of the future were.
Both are very popular with large readerships, but are the same people reading both? Do the same people who love optimistic SF also love cyberpunk? I'm thinking back to the friends who first turned me to Stephenson. At least with them, they did not read other SF. Other suggestions from them were things like, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Talk about pessimistic.
I have to say, I loved Hamiton's view of the future. I think the point of the article was spot on - you need a hopeful outlook on the future, just to keep going. You need a commonly accepted road map of the future, and it has to be something that people want to build towards. If all you see is darkness ahead, what the point.
Snowcrash on the other hand, was excellent in the ways Blood Merrian. Its a voice of warning, showing you what you definitely do not want. I wouldn't want my kids growing up in the world of Snowcrash. And the point seemed to be, if we as a society keep doing this and this, then logically it will lead to a future america that looks like this. I mean, we already have a floating island of trash in the pacific. So Stephenson isn't extrapolating that far.
I think, in the end, both authors have a similar view of what they'd like the future to look like. I think they're just looking at different aspects of the problem in getting us there.
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