The suspect cable actually seemed to have better strain relief for wire connections and more solder on the USB A connector (transfers mechanical stress better), even though the author pointed them out as features of the authentic cable.

That tangle is not strain relief. Those wires are buried in injection-molded plastic. Pull on them and those loops will not stretch as they are in solid plastic. What they will do is potentially result in unwanted cross-talk between wires as loops start acting as antennas.