It invokes the reaction of "you must be doing something wrong," but at the same time, wider, lower pressure tires are a widespread preference, even for quite experienced riders.

It’s the first paragraph of the article.

> slim tires that routinely got banged up on New York City streets, turning the wheels into dead weights riding on thin scalps of rubber.

I'll have to find the reference (J "Bicycling Science" maybe?) but I believe the evidence is that wider, lower pressure tyres have less rolling resistance on real world roads. If you're going fast then there's an air resistance trade off to make, but even for something like the Tour de France I'm told the modern preference is for 28mm tyres & for us ordinary riders wider than that would be the optimum width.

You don't want knobbly MTB tyres on road though obviously.