You're missing a huge point of the article, though, and he's right - CSS3 gradients are limited to a subset of their real potential.
With SVG (and/or Canvas, debatably), you can do much more complex filters and combinations, and then still use it within your code. It's not just about the browser-vendor-prefix mess.
Actually, the author of the article is missing the point of CSS gradients. They are not for sophisticated shapes or "anything useful like that". That's exactly what SVG or raster images are for.
Someone could as well write a post entitled "Farewell to border-style" and use very similar reasoning.
With SVG (and/or Canvas, debatably), you can do much more complex filters and combinations, and then still use it within your code. It's not just about the browser-vendor-prefix mess.