There are on entire sections on each of these -- 1) how nails fell in price due to steam power manufacturing, and 2-4) how standardized lumber from across the country was available cheaply when local wood was scarce, due to steam power sawmills and railroads.
The whole point is that you don't need local wood, or high-skill anybody at all.
I have no idea how you think the author doesn't "connect the dots".
You are pointing to a different set of dots than gbronner.
They are talking about the advantages of post-and-beam construction - extremely tolerant of heterogeneous and uneven lumber, can avoid using nails, etc. This article gives the impression that post-and-beam construction needed tons of expensive materials and skilled laborers - but they are saying it's not the case, it just was less amenable to economies of scale. You can't ship in hearty lads to hew logs the way you can ship in boards and nails.
Of course, in the past two years the Home Depot has been out of stock sometimes as well.
https://www.harborfreight.com/saw-mill-with-301cc-gas-engine...
Whenever someone says, I want to write X program from scratch. I’m going to send them this link.
An axe and a broadaxe and a chalk line (though people originally just used charcoal).
Making beams is not that hard, especially if you have lots of wood and not a lot to do in the winter.
This allows you to produce post and beam beams for personal use quite cost effectively -- they don't take that much time to saw, and the transportation cost is basically nil because you are going to use them on-site, and you don't pay the monster weight penalty to put them on a truck. You can't kiln dry everything, but you can air dry it, and it tends to be extremely good for construction. The waste can be burned in a wood boiler.
chop tree -> hew it on-site -> haul to building area is very cost effective.
If you have infinite wood (remember, clearing land requires removing the trees anyway, and people would often burn them just for the potash), it is both cheaper and better to use post and beam.
What you are saying is also true, but is not pertinent to the article.