The reason the article is found wanting is that the answer to the question is not really in anything to do with the Regency era per se. It's mostly because Jane Austen was really good at writing romantic comedies, and so set a template that everyone wants to follow in much the same way that nearly all modern era Hollywood romcoms are pale imitations of Nora Ephron's work (When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail - which was itself a remake anyway but with the Ephron formula liberally applied).

Ephron's genius, as with Austen's, was not simply the fact that she seemed to have come up with a winning formula, there was also an enormous amount of craft, wit, originality and compassion involved.

I don't know, it was the sort of a period when regular people in England where ran over by cavalry for demanding suffrage rights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre The whole Europe's elites were busy putting down the post-French Revolution upheaval.

That's an... interesting view of history. I think people do downplay it these days, but there was significant unrest for most of the 19th century.