Well, I'd say that in the author's case it might be more useful. ;) I never really had the inclination to grep for data like the author does.

I generally work from an IDE anyway, where it is clear that I am working with a value that is part of a JSON object and I can follow it back to the proper structure anyway. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I feel like the article is written for a very specific use case and perspective. Almost to the point where the saying "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" is applicable. Where if it doesn't look enough like a nail it should be adjusted to look more like one instead of expanding your toolbox a bit.