Maybe, but the identified harm was adding fluff in order to persuade. If you subtract mostly irrelevant if colorful anecdotes, you keep the point and the concision, basically making it more persuasive for free.
So while one message sent by this version is "look again at the part I thought I was important", another message is, "wow, that 'bikeshed' was a powerful distraction". That calls yet more attention to the 'bikeshed' itself -- both the specific instance and the general phenomenon -- and the author's own self-conscious rhetorical choices about how to influence readers.
The many levels of semi-contradictory subtext are making my head spin!
I don't need Google Analytics to tell me that a lot more people thought and spoke (and will continue to think and speak) about the original article than if the article had resembled this "remixed" version. Many of those people will at least observe the point behind the anecdote, even if they don't linger on it.