Yeah, I have no idea why the strong stance. It seems to be so strongly rooted in a minimalist perspective. If you want to not have zebra striping on by default, I may be okay with that if you have it on during hover. In this paradigm I also want it both directions like a giant +.
Another thing not discussed is the problem with big tables. If you have to scroll at all, you lose the headers and "label" in column A. I like it when things scroll only the "data" part but leave these fixed and always visible. It would also be interesting to see a replication of the header as a footer and an additional column Z that duplicated column. This helps you not have to move your eyes back and forth as you look at the data and scroll around.
For me, when reading something with data tables, a common use case is to look up a particular value in the table, and in the case of large tables (such as the baseball statistics example given right above that quote, https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*71B5i6rZMMsryN0pD...) it's very hard to reliably do so, and zebra striping or some other solution is necessary to ensure that you're reading the right value for this team, not the one above or below that.
I would consider a guideline that makes tables more beautiful but less readable (as measured by purely functional metrics such as speed and mistake rate when reading them) as deeply flawed, putting the cart before the horse, so to speak.