As a native Chinese speaker I read that article years ago when my English was just enough to read long articles like that. I found it so damn funny and with a great sense of humor (maybe a Chinese sense of humor). I don't understand why people think it's "unrelentingly pessimistic" that is "unjustified". I even recommended this to my friend who studies linguistics and teaches Chinese to foreigners.

I'm from Peking University and I don't really know "how to write the character 嚔, as in da penti 打喷嚔 'to sneeze'" either. I think it's a general problem in the era of computer and internet, as people input Chinese with pinyin, not with pen and ink. It's going to be interesting to see how Chinese evolve with modern technology.