How long did it take you? What level of expertise do you have in terms of disassembly / electronics in general? Did you read this quote from the article:
"Even better, it appears the battery isn’t trapped under the logic board. That could mean battery swaps without removing all the brains first—a procedure we’ve been dreaming about for a while."
I was going to say that they may have been talking about the 2016 revision (g4 / touchbar) with that quote and maybe the retinas (g3) were not that bad.
However according to the comments the ifixit people were playing it very safe, most of the steps in the first half are not entirely necessary and the procedure can be completed in about an hour.
The tradeoff is not so clear cut. When disassembling more parts, more can go wrong. This is true for the MBP, and especially for the iPhone. Screws can get damaged, misplaced or swapped, which can be disastrous because they have different lengths.
If the whole procedure takes a long time, people will get impatient and probability of errors increases.
This is why I still feel the fishing line method, combined with low quantities of solvent is the least risky option overall.
"Even better, it appears the battery isn’t trapped under the logic board. That could mean battery swaps without removing all the brains first—a procedure we’ve been dreaming about for a while."
That...seems like a pretty big improvement?