So the question is, should weird, hard to detect and buggy behavior that experienced players can exploit be kept as part of the game? It's a highly subjective and, to me, non-obvious answer.
Players get very attached to timing and knowledge based tricks, especially ones that give them an advantage. Does that mean they should get them? There's a tricky balance between alienating new players and rewarding skill and dedication in old players.
Yeah, it's hard to get sympathy from me for upping micro requirements. That could be because I'm bad at it, and find it uninteresting. Those might also be related. :P
For example, take that trick with keeping a couple of void rays charged up on each other. I don't think that's something amazing everyone should aspire to. I think it's obnoxious.
That sort of thing is all right if it gives you interesting decisions to make -- and the video about the carriers argued well enough that it does. It ought to be overt, though: A pre-launch interceptors button, not hidden knowledge that invisible, unselectable interceptors stay out if you keep carriers moving.
I think "creative use of game mechanics" is a large part of what makes e-sports popular. Boxer (the Michael Jordan, or perhaps Babe Ruth, of pro-gaming) wasn't popular so much for his mediocre mechanics or even his good micro,but primarily for his creativity.
Games with matchmaking systems don't need to dumb the game down in order for players to be able to play against each other and each have a roughly even chance of winning.
I'm not a SC1 purist - I'm happy I can rally workers to minerals from a base, and I even like the automining feature at the start of games in HoTS. But removing APM sinks and removing interesting/subtle unit mechanics are two very different things.
Players get very attached to timing and knowledge based tricks, especially ones that give them an advantage. Does that mean they should get them? There's a tricky balance between alienating new players and rewarding skill and dedication in old players.