There is no great mystery behind it. I am the one who posted both these articles. I am thinking of trying out another distro after trying (and loving) arch linux and Slackware seems like a good distro to try.
Ok, but I don't get these tutorials for the sake of writing a tutorial, with no specified target group. It's like I've written "comparing python vs ruby, getting dirty with dynamic languages" and started it with "a computer program is a set of instructions... the source code is written in something called a programming language..."
He is not comparing distros. He is just recommending to newcomers which distros to start with. But yes, I agree that the introduction is too basic first. Maybe, he just want newcomers to know the 'real distros' they should try out after knowing the basics.