Shockingly, the article doesn't even mention A/B testing as a way to find out what a site's visitors prefer. In my opinion, an untested strategy is little more than guesswork.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_programming
> This article appears to push people to consider beyond that: new things.
Yes, but the issue isn't new things, it's which new things. For that, you need testing. If people were either rational or predictable, this argument would fall apart. But they aren't.