Well, if we want to get dogmatic about it, I agree. What these people have done is not truly "retirement" but it is still a positive step, IMO, getting out of a soul-sucking, stress-inducing job with an overflowing BS bucket and into something they don't dread getting up in the morning to do.
Not retirement, to be sure, but a step in the direction of reaching the point where you have enough financial resources to choose something that doesn't fill the BS bucket so much. And if they had the resources to retire completely but still chose to w*rk some, then they are still FI which is half of FIRE -- the prerequisite half to the other half. In that situation, just *knowing* that you can just walk away if the BS bucket fills too much is liberating sometimes because of the psychological aspect of it.
So perhaps they played fast and loose with the term "retirement", but they still showed positive examples of running the numbers and realizing you don't need "one more year" in something that is taking a vampiric drain on your soul and your happiness. That's something, at least.