Very condescending piece. There is no universally best design, it's always the best _for a set of people_. The developer's mistake is that he optimizes for his own kind and designs things such that people who have a clue get an awesome interface. But most people don't have a clue about a very specific piece of software. Therefore it's likely that they optimized for the wrong kind of people. That is the true reason. I myself just accepted that there's stuff that I love and stuff that the majority loves and most of the time the design choices are completely opposite, so I just settle for their 'best'.
I am an engineer and I have built some rather impressive software in my time. However I grew up in design, I worked in design, my diploma says design. On what side of this line do I belong? I feel that not everything is as black and white as the author might suggest.
It's not a design vs engineering boundary; it's a competence boundary. Your boundary simply encompasses more knowledge, of more areas — and thus you don't fit the archetype the article talks about.
The Idiot Line between being an author and a hack must be somewhere between the heading tag where you all caps your negative then drop in an F bomb modifier for shock value.