While I sympathize with the author (it must have hurt pretty bad if it made him go create an entire website dedicated to "google drive sucks") I thought it was quite obvious that files created on Google Drive with their document editor were not actually copied to your computer with the Google Drive program. It's easy to see when you try to open the file with Notepad or a similar local text editor. Additionally you get a warning when you move a file out of the Drive folder which you should always heed.

Not only that, but if it were the actual file on your local drive and not a link, there wouldn't be an option to "make this file available offline". There were cues which the author missed, but they were obviously not prominent enough which is a (the) design flaw.

Let this be a lesson that you should have multiple backups for anything important. I personally have 2 online backup systems and 3 local ones, the worth of which practice I learned the hard way like this author.

Also think twice before you empty the trash - you're manually making these files unrecoverable from the internet, and if your machine went up in smoke after you hit the button, you'd be screwed. That alone warrants serious consideration.