But you can buy a new TLD in the DNS, right? Granted, for more money and pending approval. How is the TLD you get from Handshake different? You still control it, right? And you have the power to revoke sub delegations within it, right? That's what's confusing me... the article seemed to indicate that by switching to Handshake, you won't get your name revoked ever again. But the detail that seems to have been left out is "... if you buy a Handshake TLD, as opposed to 'renting' space from a Handshake TLD holder".
ICANN is expected to re-open TLD registrations in 2-3 years but you can't actually buy a new TLD in the traditional system at the moment. Once the registrations open up, there's a $180k application fee (that's not a registration fee, you pay that whether you win the TLD or not) on top of the registration fee which can cost millions. Furthermore, ownership of the TLD is delegate by ICANN, which is a central authority as opposed to ownership of names on Handshake which are controlled by private keys that you control.