My experience was arriving by train company X to a large station, having bought what I thought was the correct ticket to continue with company Y. On the platform for company Y's train, there was a small sign in English reminding foreigners they actually needed two 'tickets' to use the train (just as the article mentions) and I'd only bought one of them. There was a machine just the other side of the adjacent ticket barrier to buy the missing part.

Except the custodian of the ticket barrier would not let me pass through to use the machine, since I had not entered through this barrier. He looked at my tickets, and said that since I had entered on company X's train, I must go to platform 48 or whatever and use the barrier there. I was on platform 1.

This was an enormous station, and I missed the intended train.

Another journey involved 7 printed tickets for a one way journey with a couple of changes.

But instead of simplifying this, the Japanese have invented a complicated ticket barrier where you can stuff in all 7 tickets together, and it clips the relevant one(s) and returns them in the correct order.