I agree with the general sentiment of the article in the OP, and have noticed it myself in the most recent season. Things that made the show attractive, like main characters actually dying and story beats coming out of characters interacting with the world of Westeros during the course of their travels don't play nice with a story attempting to wrap up. Plot armor has to come into play if you want to have big set piece episodes but still have the characters you need for the conclusion, and there's no time any longer to spend a character's entire plot for a season in their travels from point A to point B.
I think this has a lot to do with why TWoW is taking forever to come out and may have been broken out into more and more books, as GRRM can't bring himself to write a condensed series of the events like the show has opted (or is required) to do. I wouldn't be surprised if the books turn out very different because GRRM ends up going off on tangents during journeys that weren't even shown on the show or kills characters because he couldn't write a convincing conclusion to their scene in which they didn't get killed.
I think this has a lot to do with why TWoW is taking forever to come out and may have been broken out into more and more books, as GRRM can't bring himself to write a condensed series of the events like the show has opted (or is required) to do. I wouldn't be surprised if the books turn out very different because GRRM ends up going off on tangents during journeys that weren't even shown on the show or kills characters because he couldn't write a convincing conclusion to their scene in which they didn't get killed.