The screenplay format both presented a story-based framework for understanding the progression of the argument, and humor (unicorn with laser horn) to provide a contrast to the fairly complex topic.
I'm clueless when it comes to crypto, and if I were to read a very well written paper about it, I'd probably get sidetracked, or accept the conclusion without understanding the steps taken to reach it. The format of this article was perfect for driving the point (and its reasonings) home to the uneducated masses such as myself.
But it seems like the situation they describe is one where you wouldn't want to use encryption at all. Why give the user his data in an encrypted form when you can give the user an ID and keep his data entirely away from him? Seriously, when does giving someone data you don't want them to read ever work better than just not giving them data at all?
Having a narrative reinforces the point that what you actually do depends on the entire context of the application. You would almost never be the one implementing cannot-be-broken-under-ANY-circumstances encryption. So you have to know what the circumstances are. In this case, the circumstances point to no-encryption-whatsoever!
Sure, you could point to other circumstances where something like what they're talking about would be useful but that's a million possible circumstances with a million possible encryption solutions and you've lost the useful urgency of the original concrete narrative.