I am from The Netherlands and I'd say this article paints a bit rose-tinted glasses plus anecdotal evidence so allow me to present a can of nuances.
For example, the directness phenomenon isn't as widespread as it is everywhere in The Netherlands. I'm originally from the more rural south (a Catholic area) and its very much different than where I live now (Amsterdam Area). South is more.. "Burgundian" and less direct. Both have their charms but its annoying when outsiders equal Amsterdam or (big cities in) Holland with The Netherlands.
An example where directness backfires: when I go to a restaurant in Germany or when I get my train ticket checked in Germany I feel treated more like a gentleman. Service is flat out better over there. I'd suggest to consider this to be attributed to "Deutsche Gründlichkeit" but I'm not so arrogant to assume there are no other possible reasons. Anthropology is rather complex...
Another example of rose-tinted glasses is "Many of the older houses in the Netherlands have big windows, allowing visitors – if they so wish – to peep inside." everywhere I look there's tools used to close the windows be it small or large. And they're often used. Another typical thing in The Netherlands is that gardens are walled to denote which part is who's.
Or this one: "The Netherlands is unique in the way it treats topics such as prostitution, drugs and euthanasia." Perhaps the 3 of them as a package, but Christian CDA made mushrooms illegal in the '00s, coffeeshops are getting closed and are not allowed to be too close to schools (good luck with dense areas), and the Red Light District is less red nowadays. A country like Portugal also has decriminalized drugs. Euthenasia is also getting adopted more often in other countries (let us not forget Belgium and Canada [2]), and btw it has very strict rules in The Netherlands. The Christians dislike it as well.
"Proverbs such as ‘Doe maar normaal, dan ben je al gek genoeg’ (just be normal, that’s already crazy enough) or ‘Stek je hoofd niet boven het maaiveld uit’ (don’t put your head above the ground) are there to remind us that we are all the same." These stem very much from Calvinism.
Leo Blokhuis made a 8 part series "Achter De Dijken" about Calvinism in The Netherlands [3]. I found it very good. It is in Dutch and probably geolocked to be only available for Dutch IPs, but series like these should work over VPN or be available on Usenet. Also, other public broadcast television might've bought the rights and provided translation, I don't know. Maybe it is even possible to suggest it to your public broadcast TV station? Even that series, however, is a caricature/generalisation.
[1] Or as others provided with nuance: "a big city in Holland"