You have very valid points. I use wordpress for my own blog just because I frankly don't care about most of that because I'm literally just trying to throw up my research which doesn't require much and I do like the plugin support and ease-of-use for what I do. This seems to be a common sentiment in the InfoSec community as most every other researcher I know has an equally ugly, POS website. But people still go there because it's the only way to get that info. In fact, to be honest, I think in the InfoSec world if you do have a hip, modern, flashy website like a lot of sites in other spaces, you're actually looked down upon.
I know what I just said is a web dev's nightmare but that's reality for me; I already spend far too much time screwing with x86-64 assembly, studying operating systems, writing Python scripts, and etc.... To sit down and really think out my site right now. Am I proud of that? No. But the site works for what I need it to and looks decent compared to some of the others out there in my space. Would I have this attitude if I were a web dev? Of course not. The critical aspects of what my job entails (not web dev at all), I don't have this attitude at all and in fact I am extremely careful about what I put out there both in terms of my code and my written works. I just thought I'd drop a line and explain an audience that WP may still be decent for... Those who only want "decent!"
That all said, you make fantastic points and generally universal ones as well. No "one-size-fits-all" solution is ever the best-in-class in any area and I also realize that many folks that this article is geared towards are unlike me and probably trying to use Wordpress to run stores, full-blown websites, and other non-blog things. They also probably have products and rely on their website to sell them, unlike I do. So therefore, I would recommend your suggestions to those people and businesses.
Thanks for the Ghost rec, though I have not seen it in action yet. Frankly, I think I'm going to go with jekyllrb.com if I ever leave Wordpress.