Yet I feel compelled to ask: how much effort was invested in reaching such degree of finesse?
Pagination is (usually) very easy to implement and can be done completely on the server side. Your (very magnificent) solution sounds like it would require days, if not weeks, to be implemented, and adds plenty of javascript to the server-side part.
Do you think there's a "economy class" infinite scroll, or is it only viable for sites with a big budget (in effort at least)?
However, browsing posts is the most core functionality we offer so it's worth spending so much time on.
If the argument of the original article was "it's hard to do infinite scrolling well" I would have to agree. Pagination is much easier to implement. But for some sites, say Twitter or Facebook or apps like Discourse it's worth the effort IMO.
I'm not going to apologize for complimenting someone's work. If that makes you cringe, then you will have to live with that. I think you will be happier if you try to choose other things to get upset about.