I'm sure the author of the article has a really valid reason why not being able to put a ringtone on their phone symbolises the downfall of the glorious apple empire, but my experience with iPhone users is that most of them have them on silent 24/7.
This got me thinking about other ways in which this stuff is a problem. Yesterday I found a podcast that I could only download as an mp3. I loaded it up in safari but there is no way to "save" the file because iOS doesn't give access to the file system. Consequently I couldn't listen to it on my subway ride this morning because i didn't have bandwidth. This is supposed to be a device that I own and that makes my life better, but then why is it standing in my way when I want to do a very simple thing? It's quite frustrating.
GoodReader has a good internal file manager and it can download and play MP3s from a URL.