The real takeaways from the OP article is that 1) not all linking strategies are about SEO (WH or BH), and 2) black hat SEO is not white hat SEO, and often has a different ranking goal. The truth is, not everybody is seeking long term, Google-compliant ranking by use of these methods, so it is irrelevant to judge them solely by that WH qualitative criteria. And SEO projects can legitimately have varying levels of quality depending on the tier or other aspects involved, not everything has to be 'first class' in order to work.
BH SEO is frequently set up around short term campaigns or blitzes, or even short term domains, thus making moot the issue of Google penalties. Blog comments can be done for click through or referral traffic purposes, especially if the sites have very large traffic to leech the direct traffic from. Blog comments on hi-metrics pages can be very helpful for building authority to Tier I properties, that are secondary to the main site one is doing quality WH SEO for.
Ezine articles were likewise not originally even supposed to be about SE ranking, they were early devices for simplified syndication and ready-to-use material for people who needed related content on their own niche sites. Such re-used content may be valuable in and of itself, independent of whether it is scored as "original' for ranking purposes. Etc, etc, not everything in link buildiing revolves around white hat, the SERPs or always pleasing Google.
