None of those questions disprove the original advice... build a landing page without pricing, with some initial idea of what the product is, reach out to your ideal customer (prospects) and put out ads to get traffic to the website?
The author just hasn't been into every business book and read between the lines. The whole fly the plane to the destination is a too literal summary of the hint-hidden summary being offered by the guru. Of course the guru doesn't want his advice to survive resummarization, he only wants to sell the unzipped version that becomes a part of you.
I don't agree with selling courses but the detail is actually all there in books like Expert Secrets which advises you to become an expert on-demand, i.e. only after you have amassed an email list and asked them what they want from the course they just signed up for do you build the course.
It's kind of advising to put the cart before the horse and working backwards from success. I guess it gets you comfortable with putting the choke point before the horse too. I don't think it's an entirely admirable approach but it is not vague, it's specifically tailored advice for people who suck at business ideas and treating people "unfairly". "A baby's first adventure in the value of misdirection" would be a more accurate title but there is value in working this out yourself too. A book teaches and no one wants to disparage a teacher who helped them become who they are, it would be like disparaging themselves, so no matter if the advice works or not you will see praise for it.