I don't see how you could have read the article and come to this conclusion. The first few sentences of the article even go into detail about how a cheap $1200

I don't see how you could have read the article and come to this conclusion. The first few sentences of the article even go into detail about how a cheap $1200 consumer grade computer should be able to handle 10,000 concurrent connections with ease. It's literally the entire focus of the second paragraph. 2003 might seem like ancient history, but computers back then absolutely could handle 10,000 concurrent connections.