I look at the first paper as generating a hypothesis. That's the first step in any scientific process. A few replications later, we've got a theory, and then a few more later, a fact. The first papers are as important as the rest of that pipeline.
What causes outright harm is:
1) Papers with poor methodology;
2) Authors overselling their results; or just as often
3) Readers / reporters giving too much confidence in preliminary results
To be clear, I was calling em500 on #3, not the authors on #1 or #2.
On a skim, I don't see obvious problems (but, then, I wouldn't expect to find them; most require a deep read). It's published in an open access venue, which is always a good sign. It also helps that you're from BC, which for the most part, (still) has a pretty good reputation for scientific integrity (there's been a rapid decline in scientific integrity over the past two decades, and that's hit the institutional culture across the river from you particularly hard).
So you're okay by me!
Having skeptical priors about research in general, whether incentives, error rates, or whatnot, is totally fair.