I think the general message was that bitterness in general is largely a perceptual measure and that our existing methods for measuring and estimating bitterness don’t really have an appreciable correlation to the massively dry-hopped NEIPAs. I imagine it would behoove the industry to develop a better metric which aligned with the sensory perception of the finished beers.
The one fascinating element in the article is that dry hops have diastatic power — I had always assumed that the CO2 production observed following dry hopping was the existing CO2 coming out of solution due to the increase in nucleation sites. I had no idea that dry hops effectively contribute to fermentation. Even now, I have a finished IPA (S.G. 1.012) sitting on 3 oz of dry hops and continuing to ferment.