As a BS & MS in CS degree holder, who did not have a thesis option, I agree wholeheartedly. The article mentions that the coursework programs are basically extensions of undergrad, and that certainly applied to my program. I was a bit non-traditional, as I did my MS later in life and as a working professional (8 yrs after finishing my BS), so I wasn't expecting the full-time deep dive experience anyway. I tried to take advantage of the time I did have though and both refresh my knowledge of CS and extend it in a few areas (mainly, learning functional programming and knowledge of language and type theory) Unfortunately, I didn't get to do any research, but I am trying to make up for that by applying to a post-masters advanced study certificate program.

I also had some folks in my program who were, in my opinion, definitely not graduate-level material (a point made in the article as well). I feel like I have a strong CS background and can take things to a higher level, but because of the weaker folks, some of my classes were (to me) watered down and ineffective and thus not challenging to me.