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Stable against what perturbations? What impact would a large body passing through the system have? Stable as in self-correcting (up to a limit)? What is the limit. Even long running accurate simulations of the three body problem are sensitive to perturbations...

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> This system is completely stable—I double-checked with computer simulations. But nature would have a tough time forming this system.

If I understand correctly, I think the author uses "stable" to just mean a _fixed point_. The fixed point must actually be unstable to just about every possible perturbation, which justifies the second statement; if the fixed point were actually "stable" (to perturbations) then it would occur relatively easily in nature.

I'd imagine each one of the planets would have an artificial gravity generator itself able to correct for gravitational disturbances

Assuming artificial gravity generators, who needs planets?

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