Well, anything with an electrical connection to anything else is a potential "annihilator" of that latter thing. It's only USB's ubiquity, and its ability to supply significant current to a downstream device, which are capitalized upon here. (The latter, I concede, is useful in implementing a device destroyer, but a small battery could easily enough replace it.)

The security problems with USB are things that need to be fixed.

I think every other non-optical port on your computer is just as susceptible to electrical attack. The only real difference is that USB provides its own power.

This is a human delivery mechanism for a physical attack. You could make a DVI cable that was covertly a water hose, but that's not a DVI problem.

USB exists in the physical world, of course there are going to be physical attacks (i.e. a crapload of current or voltage) that all physical things are subject to.