My take was that GP was essentially complaining that now you have to pay attention to strategy to be good and you can't just wing it. This has been the case forever, though. SC1 is that way, chess is that way.

No, the GGP is making the point that games designed for competitive multiplayer are not fun. Skill was always required. But fun is something the industry has forgotten how to do.

I think he is wrong about Sc2 though. The game is way easier to play than what is has been, and sure some decisions (12 workers at the start instead of 6) were for competitive gaming/watchability, but most of them were just help for casual players like me. I like being able to execute a build order easily, to gather my units with one press, to not have to learn to recognize if i have too much worker on a base and have it told to me, all of that did not help the competitive scene. I'd argue that they focused on 2 things: casual player experience and watchability. The only thing pro gamer gets to get is balance at high level.