The problem stated is that instead of being able to find widely cited or good papers, any amount of research involves trudging through hundreds of bad, off topi

The problem stated is that instead of being able to find widely cited or good papers, any amount of research involves trudging through hundreds of bad, off topic, outdated, unrelated, or otherwise useless papers, just to get an idea of what is being talked about in the field. And even when getting there, what you find may be completely non-practically relevant in the end. Just saying "yeah thats how things work in academia" Doesn't help anything; this article is pointing out a very real problem: the state of things now is a mess.