My former PI was a generally terrible person that thankfully no longer has that role. He said something to our group once which summarizes OP's article quite well: "There is no journal of negative results." It's a crappy attitude, but it's true; If you don't make a breakthrough, you won't publish. If you don't publish, you don't eat.

During your introduction to the scientific method in high school, they conveniently leave out the part about needing to be a politician in order to succeed in science.

> This loop generally takes 6–12 months or more.

I depends. In physics is like 3 months from the initial submission to the publication of the accepted article. In math there are horror stories of sending a reminder to the editor after 18 month because there is still not a review.

This sounds like something written by an administrator. Someone who used to be an active scientist but then chose an administrative career.

I'd say that the biggest barriers to progress are the people who choose to take the easy path. Progress has always depended on people doing what they believe in. Not because of the institutions and incentives, but despite them. External sources of motivation can help to a degree, but they will eventually fail, as people learn to game them.

Then there are a lot of claims that falsely generalize the way things were done in the niche the author was in to the rest of science. Like authors paying article processing fees when not mandated by funders or institutions. Or that scientific publishing is about publishing the results (rather than, for example, committing to a specific version of the argument you are making). Or that a paper is a result of years of work. Or that people are afraid of being scooped, instead of talking about their ongoing work with other people in the field.