That being said, I think even people that agree with that statement would still be surprised at the kinds of stops that successful systems make. For example, Tokaido Shinkansen, the most financially successful line in the world, makes stops in Fuji (pop. 245k), Odawara(195k), Anjo (188k), Kakegawa (117k), Nakamura-Ku (135k), Mishima (110k), Hashima (68k), Maibara (38k), and Atami (37k). There are three services: all-stop, skip-stop, and non-stop. The fastest non-stop service is about an 1:40 faster than the all-stop service, and 1:00 faster than the skip stop service. But most terminal-to-terminal customers still take the skip stop service because it has the highest frequency...enough to negate the speed advantage of non-stop service in most cases.
When the CAHSR proposal first came out, the phrase "cow towns like Merced" was practically a meme. People were laughing at the stop in Gilroy, saying things like "why? so we can buy garlic on our way to LA?". Most people even thought that stops in secondary cities like Fresno and Bakersfield were entirely unnecessary. But the experts who wrote the report (who are fairly well regarded, btw) chose those stops for a reason: they are rural minihubs that aggregate a lot of traffic volume in areas that are too far from larger cities.
In the words of an operations researcher I once worked with: with HSR, top speed is what sells the service, but acceleration is what makes the money. Acceleration minimizes the time loss from making more stops, and more stops means more money.