The first two points are true - if people didn't disagree on the importance of freedom then much of 20th century history would be very different.
Decisions as simple as "What phone will I buy" are an insanely complicated calculus of thousands of micro-decisions and trade offs.
People like MG like to pretend that they have themselves all figured out, and THE reason that the iPhone is superior for him is "the little things," or they buy Android because "its an open platform."
Its all bunk, they bought it because, hey the phone does what they need it to, and for some damn reason that particular configuration of options happened to strike a chord with them.
So isn't that a defence of MG's article? It was even titled "An iPhone Lover's Take on the Galaxy Nexus". The point was describing his impressions of the nexus from the perspective of someone who does* care about the things that the iphone does well.
Of course its a combination of lots of things. And for people who like the iphone, they are happy with the combination of tradeoffs that it makes. UI responsiveness and battery life being two of the important ones for the iphone.
This is not a comparison of equals, but a comparison of Luxury vs. Standard. That's no longer about preferences, that's about one being better.