the fact is that Vitalik was pushing bitcoin towards having all these features back in the days (you can even find his arguments online) and it was rejected since bitcoin is a currency not a platform for silly things. so he copied bitcoin and created ethereum.
that article has some points in it but in my opinion it is exaggerating a lot of things. for instance bitcoin may not be the fastest option or the most efficient thing but it is far from being slow and inefficient.
What about the part where it switches to Proof of Stake? Or the part where new coins will keep appearing? Smart contracts may be fun (used as platform for a thousand tokens) but that's the least of the worries. Oh and don't forget undoing the blockchain, because a few individuals have the power to do so...