I think what the parent was trying to communicate (and what I'm thinking as well) is doubting your premise in 1. ("the model must be thinking beyond the next token").

Rephrase "The model is good at picking the correct article for the word it wants to output next" to "After having picked a specific article, the model is good at picking a follow-up noun that matches the chosen article". Nothing about the second statement seems like an unlikely feat for a model that only predicts one word at a time without any thinking ahead about specific words.