This story is a case study in how not to sell software. This is exactly what I would expect to see at HN.
There are an infinite number of ways to communicate how not to do things. Enumerating them only serves to decrease the entropy rate.
What I suspect is most people enjoyed this article because VMware made a fool of themselves, but not, as you suggest, because it provides an enlightening anecdote that will inspire the reader to avoid a common pitfall and yield an effective checkout process.
Someone once said to me "A smart person learns from their mistakes, a brilliant person learns from other people's mistakes."
Positive examples show you what you should do and how you should do it, but they often leave out why. A negative example makes it very clear why you should do things a certain way and avoid doing them other ways.