> And it is entirely possible (and probable) that performance at each position is distributed as a Gaussian

Find me any research agreeing with this statement

(spoiler - you won't, because researchers have broadly reached consensus to the opposite)

OK, can you point us to that consensus please? Anything published?

I would have thought that if there were literature on that consensus, the author would have cited it. But they didn't. And the entire tone of their article is speculative.

Gaussians are generally considered the default assumption for a process with an error term with unrestricted movement in both directions, until shown otherwise.