Faster does matter in many cases.
The authors of the original article and the response may have a bit of survivorship bias, and haven’t seen companies fail because they fell behind, but that definitely happens. Every company/product that I’ve worked on (before my current company) is now dead. 90% of everything fails. Companies/products fail (maybe slowly, but eventually) when they are compared against other companies in a similar space that can deliver more features more quickly. And don’t forget that things like performance and scalability are “features” here.
Similarly, doing “More” also matters in many cases, and more requires working faster. Having quality (in the critical areas) allows you to work faster. Automated tests are faster than manual tests, but aren’t needed everywhere.
I have to say I mostly agree about bugs, though. Most bugs don’t really matter.
Sharry is a nice simple one that I think hits all your points.