While I agree with you, I think the article was talking about the nontechnical consumers, the ones who don't understand what mhz and gigabytes mean, they just want a computer that does what they want it to do (yes, I'm being intentionally vague here).

That said, I'd like to think that most people/kids under the age of 20 or so have much better grasps on a computers technical specs, at least comparable to how most people are familiar with the relevant specifications on a car (HP, torque, fuel efficiency, etc)