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I was under the impression this (href=uri, js fallback) was the accepted standard, is it not?

It is, the comments on the blog say as much as well. Use href="#" if a link makes no sense (anything UI-related and ephemeral, basically).

Even many UI-related items could have sensible URL, e.g. href="#show-widget" (and read location.hash and perform that action when page is loaded).

The href is not only for JS-less browsers, it's also for links opened in new tab or saved in browsing session.