Both are speaking to an audience, and the point/retort approach is how most reasoned discussions occur, and how we move forward. Some see them as confrontational, and thus unsavory, which is unfortunate.
In my opinion, the 'speaking to an audience' via indirect blog posts doesn't really help us move forward as much as direct discussions do. Since we already had thorough discussions about this topic both here and on reddit, I don't see the value in this post.
I will admit that this type of indirect conversation isn't without its uses though. For one, I don't think the original blog author participated in the discussions here or on reddit. So our discussion boards were also indirectly attacking that post, without much room for the author to respond. Similarly, it's impossible to have a discussion with everyone you disagree with. Sometimes the best you can do is state your opinions, and let people consider them as they will.
I guess a better statement I could have said earlier is that we already have a forum (right here) for discussion of articles, and we don't need the disconnected responses-via-blogposts, because we can just discuss things normally here.