I don't understand why many of the stands he calls useless are useless. Sure most of them are less economical but as long as there's a loop of metal anchored to the ground how is it useless?
The "wheel grabber" kinds are particularly useless; thieves just detach the wheel or snip the wires and make off with the remainder.
[1] I'll give an example: the other week I tried to lock my bike to a trapezoid shaped stand, kind of like #13 in the thread but longer and without the lower wiggly bit. It was perpendicular to a wall, with the tall end towards the wall. The diagonal part happened to be exactly parallel with the mid-frame of my bike. Since parallel lines do not intersect, I would have had to move the bike completely inside the stand in order to make a D-lock fit around it, which was precluded by the placement next to the wall. I couldn't put it the other way and attach it to the rear chain stays because it would have jutted out into the path and obstructed pedestrians. Try as I might, I just couldn't make it work. So I just attached it to a metal fence ten yards away.
Wheel "grabbers" (usually just called 'fietsenrek') are pretty common in the Netherlands, especially the 2 level ones, because they allow the greatest number of bikes in a small area. This does have some downsides obviously, but in the Netherlands 'largest number of bikes' tends to outweigh other concerns.
Are we talking about the same kind? I mean these pieces of junk: https://twitter.com/PPushbike/status/1511404994007900160
And I think the manufacturer really did intend these to be mounted to walls rather than the floor. The second tweet shows that it's actually hinged, presumably to allow the bike to come in at a non-right angle to the wall, which wouldn't make any sense at all if it were on the ground.
D-locks are inferior to guarded bike sheds so presumably we can rule out all other bike stands as failures as well? You're free to prefer one option over another but if you bring a less versatile lock for your bike you're going to have more difficulty securing it and your trade-offs aren't the same as everyone else's.
For what it's worth I've never seen or heard someone get a wheel damaged by these bike stands. I'm kind of curious if it's even realistically possible, any realistic amount of force isn't going to do much more than stretch a few spokes (in most cases temporarily).
Because the "wheel grabber" makes it very hard to lock the frame as well as the wheel. About all that is possible without a long wire (which are generally easy to cut and thus inferior to a D-lock) is to get the lock through the rear triangle. This assumes you're able to get the bike in rear wheel first, of course.
I'd rather find a fence or lamppost over using a wheel grabber. I get that density is a concern in the Netherlands but it probably isn't outside the local convenience store everywhere else.
Is that a serious consideration? Jesus, I had no idea the environment in which these were used. I'd be scared to leave my house.
Just a few weeks ago I came back to my bike to find the bike next to it gone, with a severed cable laying on the floor in its place. The outer diameter of the plastic-coated cable was probably 10mm but the wire itself was likely only 3 or 4mm. It looked like someone had just used a hacksaw on it. I doubt it lasted even a minute.
Spacing is one reason. While you may share a stand with someone else, the next stand is going to be two to three feet away. I don't have to untangle my bike from other bikes, and I don't have to worry about damaging the bike of somebody else.
Support is the other reason. Bikes are easy to knock down and relatively easy to mangle. There is a reason why the article referred to some of the racks as wheel benders. I have also seen bikes that were mangled by cars after falling onto the street. That's not a concern with the Sheffield stand.
Then there are the other indignities, the most common being improperly installed stands. My current favourite though is how my city installed some post and ring stands, then used them to secure signs for a construction project. (The irony is that cyclists now have to secure their bikes to sign posts that are secured by bike stands!) Whenever parking is reduced due to construction, city hall hears about it. Whenever a bike stand is rendered useless, cyclists are supposed to be grateful for what we have.
As for the space requirements for the Sheffields, the least efficient arrangement that I can think of would still handle six bikes in one parking spot. When you factor in the amount of space used by aisles, which don't need to be as wide for bikes, the average will be closer to 17 bikes per parking space. That is not much of a sacrifice. Indeed, it would free up a fair amount of space. Space that could be used for homes, businesses, or even parkland assuming that you could convince people to bike instead.
(I did some quick arithmetic: two parking spots separated by an aisle is 450 square feet, or the size of a small apartment. Managing to eliminate 25 parking spots is the equivalent of freeing up a quarter acre lot, which is sufficient for detached home and yard.)
Yes, they could steal the front wheel, but it's hardly worth the effort. It's difficult to sell, and you can't get away quickly.
That doesn't seem to be the case where I live (South-central Indiana). It's common to see abandoned bikes locked to the rack with the front wheel missing. I once went to the public library for an hour and came out to find my front wheel had been stolen. I'd rather lock my frame and front wheel than my frame and rear wheel.