'text over a high contrast photo' - rule applies when the text is over a high-contrast PART of the photo. The rule is there for legibility - black text over a flat, white (or just off white) part of a photo that also, in a separate part, has some high-contrast elements, is perfectly fine for legibility.

The only unreadable type on that page is actually the white type over the high contrast photo at the very top of the page. "From one gift come many" - on my MBP, that looks really poor. My eyes are nearly in pain trying to read that.

All in all, I do think it's a bad job of a redesign. Very trendy, but quite obnoxious navigationally. Bad UX. I'm fine with big images and minimal text, but I think it needs to be shrunk quite a lot -- the entire Beats by Dre section should fit, top to bottom, on my 1440x900px screen. As it is, it's a full 2.5x screen heights (estimated).