While it is obvious that the author was hoping to discredit microsofts speed claims, the result on running the original tests was that an agreement on sign but not on magnitude (assuming the uncertainty on the MS claims is entirely in the last digit presented).

The new tests don't seem particularly hand picked given that the are among the top results I get when I google for "Browser speed test", arguably a sign that they aren't overly obscure.

As an aside, all the tests benchmarks are made by parties other than microsoft so they should count as third-party. And their being third party is typically seen as a virtue due to the tendency of vendors overturning on their own benchmarks.

So while this was obviously a bit of hostile benchmarking, it doesn't seem like there was any need for special effort to get a discrediting result, simply benchmarking with other suites proved enough. The fact that the author is clearly hostile to microsoft does not in itself disprove the results presented, and is not ground for dismissing them.