I think that although Turbolinks is an improvement on how current Rails app do view rendering, the article is absolutely spot on; Single Page Apps consuming JSON data and handling the view rendering provide a better user experience, especially when taking the issue of offline into account.

On a 2nd note, that's why I think the Rails API project is more important to the future of Rails than the Rails 4 release. I believe that Single Page Apps will become the defacto way to build web applications, and that the war to be the platform of choice isn't just about Backbone Vs Angular Vs Ember, but also about which server-side language and frameworks you use.

Rails is great (I never said it was crap), but you have to ask why companies like LinkedIn and AirBnb would choose to move off of Rails. If you checkout these talks (LinkedIn - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMd45Ij2DYQ), (AirBnB - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g5Kzj6TpPY), you'll see some of what the guy wrote in his article in them.