This is an exceptionally well written and accessible essay (I wish I could write like this!). There's another great issue dealing with ultimately inability to scale atomic distributed transaction across rows by Pat Helland "Life Beyond Distributed Transactions":

http://www-db.cs.wisc.edu/cidr/cidr2007/papers/cidr07p15.pdf (warning: PDF)

Amongst the points discussed, it talks about how real life transactions from getting a coffee at Starbucks to buying a home aren't atomic but are rather based on "workflows" with promises and budgetting for worst cases.