It's something you kinda have to try to actually feel the difference.
I can tell you a few things I noticed after a few months of use:
-Pacman (their package manager) is amazing - and if you want to install community packages from the AUR[0], you can use yaourt (if they've got dependencies on other AUR packages), or just git clone the package and run makepkg -si
I've never had any problems with it, and I've messed around a lot with my system.
-No bloat at all, you'll learn a whole lot from setting up your own system
-No choices are made for you, it's yours and yours alone.
-It's actually surprisingly stable, though you should be careful before you upgrade.
-It's always bleeding edge (maybe not always a good thing, hence you have to think before upgrading packages)
I have to read the article now though.