The article is interesting, but also seems very slanted against SEOMoz for some reason. Reading down into the comments, I think this one sums up my thoughts the best.
I hate all this “I don’t want my competitors looking at my backlinks” argument that was presented by a number of different people when Linkscape first went public. It’s like come on, it’s the internet: it’s very nature has left websites open to public inspection and I don’t see why backlinks should be any different to on-page factors. Ultimately, what a competitor can do to you, you can do to a competitor.
OSE looks like an incredible tool for serious link builders. Similar to LinkScape, but offers enough differences to make it a more useful tool in my book.