The article as far as I can tell does not say anything about importing those formats, only that they are ending support for exporting them.
How many people are both "modern" enough to be using Google Docs, but sufficiently out of date that they need to export the old formats? I am guessing sufficiently few that Google doesn't really care about them. If their copy of Office is that old, how old is their browser? Can their browser even supported by Google Docs?
Most technical-minded people who are aware of the distinction between the various formats.
I didn't get the impression that Google Docs was only used by those. We probably won't see an outcry, though, because the people getting bitten by the change (and there are lots of smaller businesses who don't really see a need to upgrade to current Office versions) aren't that vocal on the net.
How many people are both "modern" enough to be using Google Docs, but sufficiently out of date that they need to export the old formats? I am guessing sufficiently few that Google doesn't really care about them. If their copy of Office is that old, how old is their browser? Can their browser even supported by Google Docs?