In my experience, it's not site designers making this decision. Especially on larger sites, many business rules come from other places that are more interested in forcing numbers to increase and don't think the whole thing through like a designer might.

And, let's not forget that UX as a thing is much more accepted as an important thing today than when this article was written. It's still a challenge for a lot of large companies, but there are many that are finally starting to catch on.