What was wrong with the above paragraph?

Let's see:

1. It lacks systemd and apt.

systemd is so resource hungry that i'm sure they removed it to reduce the RAM bill. Apt... why install apt if the distro has a different means of updating?

2. While these are useful for debugging and development, they are also hacking tools that can be dangerously exploited.

This is purely fear mongering. Even the shell could be a "hacking tool that can be dangerously exploited". Let's remove the shell too.

There are some legitimate complaints in the article, like the use of the same key on all installs. The rest looks more like fear mongering and security theater.

Including the microphone. What were they supposed to do, desolder it manually and add $10 to the price of each device?

I don't see the article complaining that a PiKVM has so many unused peripherals when used as a KVM. To go in the spirit of item #2, the usb ports could be used as "dangerous hacking tools" so you should desolder your usb ports from a Pi used as a KVM, right?