I think it's a bit unfair to call it revisionist. It's a direct claim by the author of ssh, and out of all the ports numbered 1-255, telnet (23) does come close

I think it's a bit unfair to call it revisionist. It's a direct claim by the author of ssh, and out of all the ports numbered 1-255, telnet (23) does come closest in function to ssh. I believe the article is more about how lucky the author got to nestle a port between two other protocols that ssh superseded, rather than the thinking behind the naming of the ssh family of protocols.