And you lose this benefit if you go outside CrOS as described in the article (I'm fine using it as a SSH terminal myself), but they're more or less disposable. I could chuck mine out the window, watch it get trampled in a conveniently timed parade, run out to Best Buy and pick up another one, and I'm right back where I was minus only $250 and an hour (incl. drive time and re-syncing).
[0] http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Computer-Accessories-Netb...
Of course, what the article is describing means that you are back to admin hell again, which I don't advocate at all. Googlers use a Chrome Remote Desktop to get work done on a Chromebook, which helps, but of course, requires someone else to punt off the sysadmin, otherwise it's your problem again, just one step removed.
I wouldn't purchase a Chromebook as a primary development environment. I would purchase it as a home machine if I already have a work machine.
I've not been able to duplicate the battery life in a netbook running Linux 100% of the time. My side hustle is tech writing so most of my dev work is on my "big Bertha" Linux box and when I'm out and about and need to do light dev and mostly write or consume, I'm on the Chromebook.