You're preaching to the choir about intent. However, that article is old. Twitter's ads are much more effective this year than last. Romney alone paid $100k for one promoted trend that lasted a few hours. I know first hand they're making hundreds of millions this year.

The point is, you have no data to back your assertions about what's good for Twitter as a business. They spent years refining their business model based on their data, and they picked the one they have now.