Reading that article reminded me of how far my interests lie from that type of riding. It is also another confirmation of how blind testing, in this case barely blind, can make it difficult to sense things that you think are very obvious when you know what you are using. I've proven this over and over again when testing audio components.

Given that I never "hammer", never corner at high speed (or even moderate speed), and never ride downhill at higher speeds, any differences in these bikes on those characteristics are lost on me.

As a statistician, I would consider this rider's observations to have dubious value, as he did not repeat the rides in a different order to confirm his findings. Riding them once each induces biases into one's observations. Likewise having only one rider, with obviously only one weight and one set of performance characteristics, reduces their value.

But to someone who respects and values that author's opinions, they could have value.