I get needing better equipment if you're a pro photographer, or even if you're just somebody like Marco with disposable income, but the suggestion that you need to dump $1k+ into a setup to make owning an SLR worth it is absurd.
I would say, however, that if you're going to buy an SLR just to use it in "green box" (aka fully automatic) mode, you're probably better off getting a high-end point-and-shoot. If you want to use your camera as a point-and-shoot, then get a camera optimized for that use case, and it will likely do better than a camera optimized for semi-manual operation.
And the difference in price between a body and a body with the standard lens kit is usually quite small.
I completely disagree with that article.
I'll grant you that you won't get extremely thin depth of field with a kit 18-55, but I don't fully agree that you can't get background separation. Distance to the lens is also a major factor there. Get close at 55mm/5.6. But more importantly, thin depth of field does not make a mediocre picture good. In some photos it can certainly help (in others it can be detrimental), but it's only one aspect. As for light, get a flash. Even an f/1.4 still won't let in light that doesn't exist.
Without knowing what are those cameras is difficult to know the reason. But a good high end compact camera, these days, tend to produce better images than kit lenses. Now, there's nothing wrong about kit lenses. I used one for a year until I was comfortable enough to jump to a better option. But these days I'm giving the same advice Marco does. Unless you have a very specific reason to shoot with an SLR or are willing to buy body and less separately, go for a compact with a good sensor size, manual controls and a good lens.
But it's just an advice, not a law written on stone.