I don't think your approach is bad, nor is it in conflict with the advice in the article, at least in spirit. You aren't (I think) describing a situation where

I don't think your approach is bad, nor is it in conflict with the advice in the article, at least in spirit. You aren't (I think) describing a situation where your untested guesses end up in a released product, or in ill-founded advice to colleagues. (Both of those actually do happen.) Forming and testing hypotheses is valuable, building on unfounded assumptions is a very different thing.