Grumpykins here. I think the term "Modern devops" sort of nails it but not quite how you used it. Most departmental/enterprise sys admins/engineers of lore that had even the slightest necessity for life outside the box scaled anything resembling automation to its breaking points. Combined with knowing and serving the reasons for their existence - developers, users etc., and devops is nothing new - it is now simply the necessary manifestation of progress at scale (albeit positively devoured by managers speaking business, not entirely unlike "agile").

"Use what works" definitely presents a lot more choices these days and likely will forever more.

"Use what works well" is something different where "well" implies helpful, dependable, predictable, manageable and so on that will continue to scale with your needs. Only breaking things down the "old-school" way will lead towards success, stability, security and life outside the box.

Good devops is still, primarily, good engineers engineering good things, for themselves and others.

Granted the article is from 2015 but my impression is author is not just cranky, but scared.