I think you are right that this is the real story. The article itself doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If the reason you are getting a Ph.D. is because you want to teach college kids or get a 'BGN' job, you are doing it for the wrong reasons. The only reason to get a Ph.D. is because you want to publish academic research. And if you show up without already knowing what you want to be researching, you're probably not ready to get a Ph.D. yet.

That's not to say that academia isn't horribly broken, it is, but in some places it really seems like the author is going off in the wrong direction.