Though this is a blog post, I thought the article was rather amateurish, and does not analyse the matter with the depth and precision required.
I used to like rts while I was younger, but now I find them too gamified, in the sense there is too much of abstract ion. You give a building order and a fully built ship materializes in seconds. Each of your men-at-arms are having the exact same stats, personal lity and skills. Individual units are pea-brained. The number of units are too less to how historical battles actually happened.
Sometime I thought paradox style grand strategy was the answer to these flaws. But playing them now feels like playing cashgrab mobile "waiting games", you essentially set something up and are just waiting most of the time for the clock to tick till the progress bar reaches 100%, that is, it had kind of ended up even more gamified.
Perhaps there is a divergence in player interests, some want simulations with toy soldiers, while others want a competitive experience, and may be there is no easy way to cover both these aspects in a single game.