I don't think that's what they sre saying, I think they sre saying it's stupid Microsoft requires hoops for such a basic feature, hence "Fix Windows" being option 1

Such a basic feature? If the OS dedups a file, by putting in a symlink behind the scenes, no one need know a symlink (or something else) exist. That makes for a better user experience. There are less concepts to absorb and less errors to be made, as the file-system won't have any cycles.

Symlinks are a premature optimization in my book, or worse, bad design. On the user level, shortcuts are often the better solution, because they allow arguments to be passed in on the command-line.

This story is really about the arrogance that is as abundant as it is inappropriate in linux world. Never have I heard of dependency hell or broken systems on Android, yet geriatric linux always needs the help of an administrator.

The only place where linux still has some merit is on the server, where its classical but aging mainframe concepts still have some life left in them.

I don't agree that symlinks are a basic feature. It's a source of a lot of pain for me on my Mac