I have been through the article before...
Well, having good intentions and ambitions is one thing, putting them to work is another matter. Mr Erland is probably quite right in defending the ideas behind the K, but in reality quite a few things were wrong, that shouldn't. We still have in the family the 214 we bought new in early 1991. This car had supposedly all the good stuff, small capacity on a relatively light body, steel dowels, aluminium alloy manifold, a knowledgeable and mechanically sympathetic owner, alas, it started to send its oil to the cooling circuit. We never allowed it to overheat, so after a replacement gasket normal service was resumed. Its a few years now that it has returned to its bad habit, but thankfully its not too bad at all, and the car sees very light use anyway. To be honest we still keep it as it is a sort of a family member, and there is no market value in it now.
So yes, the problems were largely exaggerated and made worse by interventions from clueless professionals, but i personally know of far too many people that had issues that should not have been there in the first place.
The company's policy during its last 15 years was only putting salt into injury, by trying to sell its products at a premium while adopting more and more cheap parts (bloody plastic dowels, plastic clutch slave cylinders, chocolate rubber bushes etc.).
Finally, something among Mr Erland's thoughts that stood out for me: He dismisses the Honda S2000 engine as over engineered and heavy against the respective K series units. As a Rover P6 owner that enjoy the qualities of what Rover used to be, i couldn't disagree more!