I believe it was both necessary and not a nitpick. While I agree choosing Cake or Zend by default is a fool's errand, the MicroPHP Manifesto read like someone who'd just found CodeIgniter for the first time.
Ed is a personal friend (and we do a podcast together) with many, MANY years of experience building applications using PHP. While I don't agree with him on some points in there, he does deserve to not be shit on by people who can't be bothered to do 30 seconds of research about the author.
Now the author of this article refuting the Manifesto seems to be under the impression that what Ed suggests should be the way things are done from now on. It's clear as day that all Ed was sayng was that sometimes the MicroPHP Manifesto tenets make more sense. And they do! Sometimes!
Guess what? Everyone is right! Hopefully that doesn't make some people's brain explode but both authors are correct. Mileage varies. The thing I didn't like most about this was how he picked apart the drummer analogy. I felt like it was a low blow and not really necessary.