That's a different question. Probably not. But:

1. Training a large model with lots of information, then stripping the "useless" information from that model to obtain a small model => nobody has shown this.

2. Training a small model, letting it use a database tool so it scores the same as a large model without database => nobody has shown this.

This really elegantly sums up two of the most major areas of research in the field right now. I expect people are going to hammer at both problems for a while. It will be interesting to see how much useful stuff is built as a result.

I partly agree. Theory (of computation) shows it must be possible, however nobody has produced the small model (well, depends who you ask, what is small, article disputes that) and the database yet.

To go very small (thousands of rules) so that the reasoner can be understood by humans and proven sound - might be computationally quite difficult.