1. Our design is complete, error-free and designed to stand the tests of time. It will be in common use, largely unchanged, in 40 years time. The TCP of the 2010s. There is widespread industry support. We want to move to the application layer to ease the initial roll-out.
2. Our design will need to change every few years, even we authors don't think it's finished. This is a Google-only project and most vendors are refusing to support it as they think it's badly designed crap. The ActiveX of the 2010s. We want to move to the application layer so we can force it through without anyone else's support.
Where are we on the spectrum between those two options? I don't know.
So no, it’s not the same.
Another issue they mention in the article is middleboxes, which basically will never be upgraded, and will never support new TCP features.