Yes! So much so that I've been forcing 16pt DejaVu for everything for years and it makes the web so much nicer that it is worth the annoyance of working around sites that it breaks. Every time I use a default profile browser I cringe at how small most text on the web is. I would use pt rather than px but I guess it doesn't matter in CSS (and em/rem when possible as your link suggests).
I don't mind wide text that much, but I agree it is usually better to limit the width. Similarly, your image suggestions seem like good defaults. It would be great if more people followed most of these suggestions.
The one I really disagree with is featured image being a must. There are way too many useless images on the top of posts (and sometimes inside posts also) just for the sake of having an image. My local newspaper is the worst at this, where I often look at several stories a day with the same (sometimes misleading) stock image, but lots of blog posts do the same thing (including this one). Wost is like this one where the useless large stock image is in the blog header.
I would also add no popups or fixed headers or footers. Don't pop up share icons anywhere (this page provides a good example why not :(). Just leave the share icons at the bottom. Follower side bars are often annoying (particularly when they have share icons) but occasionally useful and at least don't obstruct anything on a larger display.