I'd say a lot of it is in the hands (and, commutatively, in the ears and therefore the mind directing them). I've heard two players in a recording session pick up the same guitar plugged into the same amp and not change a dial and play the same chords, melodies and rhythms, and sound totally different.
But that and a search for a particular "sound" are in no wise mutually-exclusive. And I don't think searching for a good "sound" need necessarily serve as a prosthetic for a lack of chops, nor do I think being able to make a crappy tone sound better than another player would make that crappy tone any less soul-destroying; I think the two things can be and probably should be in symbiosis.
If anything, I think the article addresses and perhaps finds fault in the fetishization of the search, which is more or less a semantic or normative judgement. One woman's fetish is another woman's mild curiosity. I think it's a judgement which each person only can make of themselves.
From that standpoint, I'd say any insult or shame one might feel in reading the article and seeing something there which gives a twinge is most likely a self-inflicted wound.
