Another take on the idea of spreading one's earnings over more years by spreading one's spending (usually described as fabulous vacations) over more years, leaving a shorter full-time retirement at the end. If you love your job, if you would rather take time off a few weeks at a time instead of years at a time, if you have nothing in particular you'd rather be doing if you had all the time you wanted and if you believe that you can absolutely count on the future to go just like you planned it, then maybe you will enjoy this plan. I think I prefer a plan that can accommodate unexpected changes more easily. It's all in the gray area in the middle anyway.
If I live as cheaply as possible - and save 90+% of my income I can retire sooner. But this is too austere for me. If I save nothing for retirement and enjoy all of my income, I cannot retire but I maximize my current spending. This is optimizing something I don't care as much about at the expense of retirement free time that I do care about. So I am going to have to make a plan somewhere in the middle of these extremes.
My concern with the article is that there is too great a chance of the unexpected derailing that plan. Loss of job, economy problems, health issues, divorce, any number of things could leave me high and dry with little savings, few options and not get the full benefits that the "plan" promised, but only when it works out. On the other hand, if I save a reasonable amount I will have resources and options when I am old enough to retire early. I can always choose to keep working (and take as many of those fabulous cruise vacations as I want) if I have options. I don't have to be austere to make this work, in fact I can still take some fabulous vacations that don't use perhaps quite as much money all along the way, or whatever else I want to spend. I get to make the choices, not get forced into them because I spent all my resources earlier and have none left.
Currently my portfolio is on track to earn more than I contribute, and it will keep outpacing me for many years. I will have more to spend (a lot more) if I just wait a little while and I am happy with that small sacrifice now (and it is pretty small) for a big gain later. Maybe if I had to make a big, big sacrifice I wouldn't be as happy with the tradeoff, but that's the wonderful part. Everyone can decide how much to save now. The article's author can spend current resources and hope the world works the way they count on until age 70 if they want. It's not my choice.