I agree it's orthogonal, I make it clear in my post that it's an option, but only one of of many. Some shots need technique, others are fine with a polaroid. There's nothing more to say about it.
Not all engineers are robots. It doesn't take an artist to realize art has both technical and human/emotional components.
"Not all engineers are [figurative] robots" is certainly a fact and was meant as an upper bound on the number of engineers who believe that photography is merely technical in nature. I'm questioning whether the lower bound is statable as "generally engineers believe this", and claiming that I don't believe it is.
To further clarify my opinion: the line drawn by the author is too black and white. Its inhuman and unemotional itself to assume that another large group of humans can't see the emotional and human side of art.