This is precisely my experience. The interesting thing is that I recognize faces extremely well, perhaps even to the level of super-recognizer, contradicting the guy in the article. I also score really well on spatial reasoning tests and do extremely well at mathematical and abstract reasoning. I wonder if there's a connection.

As far as the nature of my minds eye, I definitely don't see pictures at all, but as you said "feel" abstract forms. When I imagine a familiar relative, I don't see an image, but rather I'm reminded of important abstract features of the person. It's as if my minds eye operates on abstractions rather than concrete representations. I also attribute my math ability with being able to manipulate these sorts of abstract visual/spatial feelings, which leads me to believe there's a connection. Even as a programmer my abstract visual/spatial machinery is working to operate on mental representations of the program state.

I wonder differences in ability on this abstract visual/spatial <---> vivid concrete representation axis can help explain differences in programming/math ability.