Their articles had a high incident of insight to them that was largely the result of repeated deconstruction and re-examination of the game design of various 80s-era classics. Quite often the articles (some of which read a lot like the linked article) were pretty entertaining.
Bringing personal experience into the essay or game review was always the point, and Tim in particular tended to go off on completely wild tangents and write in an almost incoherent and stream of consciousness style (perhaps, "style"); from memory, in one review he pauses to go cook a burrito, then describes the burrito cooking process, before resuming what he was writing about the actual game in question.
This article is pretty classic Tim Rogers: an extremely long exploration of an idea that touches on some interesting (if perhaps apocryphal) stories or facets of that idea, but may or may not have a coherent underlying vision or message.