>> Do you really think the best programmers spend enough time refactoring for the use of an IDE to help?

> Is refactoring a bad thing now?

It isn't, he just intended that the best programmers refactor less (since they are the best they must get things right or better predict the future more often then the others).

Seems rather unlikely. Do they only have to work on code written by themselves or other great programmers?

"less". If most of your job is refactoring you should probably find a new job because you aren't getting any work done.

Not at all, but assumably it doesn't take up most your time. It's just an easily solvable subset of coding operations.