That website (Inc.) doesn't cite any sources for your quotation at all. It simply appears to be their personal speculation. To me that's rather disingenuous.
I actually work in a support org at Google (on the Enterprise side, admittedly).
That account recovery link I provided (https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery) is available to anybody (This is for consumer - i.e. GMail. If you have an enterprise - i.e. GSuite account, it's slightly different in that your domain administrator can also restore you as well).
You don't need to be anybody special - you just go to that URL, fill in your details, and somebody will review it for you.
Yes, it will take time. If you make noise, it's possibly it will get escalated and you will get assurances from somebody that it's being looked into. But in general, it will take some time to process it, simply to ensure that we're giving you (and not somebody else) access to your account.
I know it sucks, but account security is tough, and I have nothing but respect for the hardworking people that handle that. In my second week at Google, I accidentally typed my password into a non-secure (but still legitimate) web-form. Within minutes, I got an alert asking me to change my password immediately. They take security very seriously.
Disclaimer: I work for Google, but any opinions above are my own.