Burglars have always targeted items that are valuable to them. Easy to sell, gets a good price, etc.
Now we have digital assets in the home, and burglars are going to focus on those things too. For most of the population, and probably many of "us", physical access to those digital assets isn't particularly secure. And to have those assets "taken" today is much more far reaching than to have lost a stereo or checkbook.
Just because the attacker had to get off his couch and go somewhere shouldn't minimize this threat. "Physical access means's you're pwned" is a true statement.
One thing I do at home, for example, is to use full disk encryption on my laptop, and hibernate it when I leave. So that if someone steals it, it's just a plastic brick. For exactly the scenario described in the article.