But if the author of the paper (or even someone else with a credible reputation) was to public factors and say they used this method then it's useful evidence.
The latter is much more important.
For an algorithm, asking for results is not that weird. It certainly fits within the purview of a paper. Moreover, it would be really strong evidence for the claims made in the paper. It is much easier to check than the proofs.
I wouldn't be surprised if a demonstration that pushes the current publicly known record for largest factored RSA modulus costs hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars even with this new algorithm, and the algorithm is also slower than other methods for, say 384-bit RSA.
It may be difficult even for Peter Schnorr to get that kind of budget for a demonstration before his paper gets traction.