Despite posts on here and news articles Eddie Thawne's death was not pointless.

Eobard Thawne was about to kill everyone in the particle accelerator except Eddie at that time. We had seen at that point in time that Barry had not yet became fast enough to hold his own against the reverse flash and required help from other heroes just to stop him (Oliver and Ronnie).

Had Eddie not shot himself everyone there except him would have died. Now no it did not have the far reaching impact of completely removing the reverse flash from history as he had hoped but it did save them for long enough that it allowed Barry to get to a point where he could hold his own and even beat reverse flash.