That was my thought too, what a brutal article. I think since it has basically an entire octave worth of palm frets on the low 3 strings, the point is that you can play almost any bass note without needing to combine with only open strings. I could see it being useful for chord melody jazz stuff. It looks like it might interfere with a pick though on the low strings.

Kinda like a B or G bender, but in the opposite direction.