I think the article is less about "communicating to the user" and more about "which users to target." Should we reevaluate ourselves as developers and build apps that target a larger, less tech-savvy audience?
In other words, when he decided after launching FeedDemon that what it should have been was a simpler product, Bradbury might have been better off if he'd left the "FeedDemon" name on the original, complex product and then rolled out the simpler version under a different name. That way people who picked up "FeedDemon" wouldn't feel like they were getting pushed into using "SimpleDemon" (or whatever the streamlined version ended up getting called) instead. People underestimate the power of names in setting user expectations.
(An objection to this might be the increased difficulty of maintaining two product lines, but there's a simple answer to that -- just stop updating FeedDemon. Eventually the power users who appreciate the simplicity will get the message and switch over to SimpleDemon, and those who ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE radio button #7,131 on the preferences screen can sit on their complicated, orphaned version for life.)
OR, you can delegate development to that power users community