> I've read it - notice, by the way, that it was also the conclusion of the original benchmark

Unclear. The article's conclusions about spinlocks are completely unfounded by the article's code and benchmarks. You could say the article luckily got it right. That's Linus's ultimate contention; the code is garbage and leads to an undefined conclusion. That what's undefined is the right conclusion is lucky, today, and could be garbage tomorrow.