So, I guess it would require a lot more research to make a real argument about this, but to me, this just sounds like an application that isn't very good, but I don't think is the same phenomenon described by the article. I definitely don't think charging money is any kind of guarantee of quality. Software is hard to make and lots of software sucks just because it sucks.
But the difference I see is that I think Navionics Boating has an incentive to make that app better. That if they make improvements for users like you, that will likely impact their bottom line positively, because they'll attract and retain more users like you.
But free mass-market consumer apps have the opposite incentive. They are incentivized to dumb things down to the lowest common denominator, because there will always be > 1 user that they attract with that approach for every 1 user like you that they alienate.
Basically: I think free business models can ignore retention, whereas for-pay subscription models can't, and that's why I prefer them.