I think the most obnoxious thing about this post (and I saw a Wikimedia employee point this out in the comments as well) is that it completely ignores the fact that Wikipedia is built on the MediaWiki platform and doesn't even attempt to address how their proposal could be realistically implemented from a development standpoint in coordination with the Wikimedia Engineering team and the community's ongoing product roadmap.
Maybe this is being a tad catty, and standing in the way of innovation in some respects but design led initiatives that don't take a close look at the world from other discipline's perspectives are usually doomed.
Wasn't this exactly what it was though? A design led initiative?
I don't think they ever had any intention of it becoming a default wikipedia/mediawiki design - it was simply a way for a design team to show their chops by saying 'this is what it could have been / could be'.
I can totally understand the frustration from the engineers and developers who get that 'the design team always think they know best' feeling - hell, I've been there countless times - but I don't think they meant for that.
But reading some of the comments in that thread, I felt awful for them - nevermind a lack of constructive criticism, some of it was just out and out hate.
I'd like to think if they were ever taken on to design a site they'd be able to sit down with the developers/UX team/marketers/SEOs/whoever and come up with something that works for everyone. That's a lot of what being a good designer is about.
(For the record, there really has been countless times I've been given a design from a designer and almost wept with frustration. Mostly with agencies that employed print designers who've been forced to now design for web.)
Maybe this is being a tad catty, and standing in the way of innovation in some respects but design led initiatives that don't take a close look at the world from other discipline's perspectives are usually doomed.