I found Ericsson and co's ideas to be completely counter to their data. A lot of the articles were based on case studies. They studied wrestlers and wrestling coaches, for instance. The wrestling coaches were adamant that their selection process of weeding out less talented athletes and spending their effort grooming the ones who showed lots of promise was one of the keys to success. Somehow the authors completely ignored or glossed over lots of bits like that, strongly emphasized the obvious fact that successful wrestlers practiced a lot, and came to the ridiculous conclusion that practice is the only thing that matters.
On a related note, here is a quote from Ericsson that appears in the article:
“Differences between expert and less accomplished performers reflect acquired knowledge and skills or physiological adaptations effected by training, with the only confirmed exception being height.”
This is so disingenuous it's hard to know where to start. Consider powerlifting champion Andy Bolton. He deadlifted 600 lbs at 18 years old the first time he ever lifted weights. I have been lifting weights for 20 years and have never deadlifted 600 lbs. Bill Kazmaier is another one: he benched 300 lbs the first time he ever tried, and benched 400 a month later. These guys were in a position to win local and regional powerlifting competitions with basically no training at all. And here's Ericsson saying there's no such thing as talent.