I think you're focusing just on the "multiply by powers of 10" part that the author is largely considering the "red herring" compared to other advantages. But

I think you're focusing just on the "multiply by powers of 10" part that the author is largely considering the "red herring" compared to other advantages. But even so... for dividing by 3, sure, the 12 inch -> 1 foot jump is neatly divisible. And obviously 3 feet -> 1 yard. But you don't get much help going smaller than an inch on any measuring tape or rule I've used. 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16... 3ish-mm inside of 10mm is no worse. Or dividing a cup into 3 equal amounts of ounces, or even a gallon into thirds. So I'm not sure there are many consistent, coherent features for all the random different scales for how things like liquids vs distances work. Heck, 10 feet, 100 feet, 1000 feet are all common enough things to hear, taking us back to powers of ten, because nobody bothers trying to stick with furlongs... (Which takes us exactly to the author's point about "just one unit" being a better way to do things, since at some points you do need to take your feet and your fractional amounts of miles and do some conversions that few people have quick practice at, vs "how many meters are in 1.25Km?") I have a soft spot for Fahrenheit temperatures because they're more granular at human scale but most of the rest of the system is pretty junky and even the convenience of 1/2, 1/4, etc quickly gets lost when you're in the land of adding an 1/8th to a 1/16th and subtracting 3/4...