I don't know what the true intention of this author was, but I will interpret this as praise.
Sure, DF is not a complete game, and objectively seen, the amount of bugs and loose ends ARE things that can be critizised, if DF is compared to a already finished game (a comparison wich is, btw, pointless. No one compares a 0.28 alpha to a full game.?).
Calling it "butt-ugly" is unjustified. The game is ASCII, and was intended to be. If Toady implented full grafics, and fails horribly at it, then you can call it ugly, but when it is intended to look this way, what use is it comparing ASCII to games who need 2000 € PCs to run the grafic engine ?
Instead, compare it's looks to games of the same category, for example nethack. Compared to nethack, DFs grafics look pretty average, I guess.
As for the complicated interface...oh come on guys, the interface IS rather complicated. Sure, you get used to it, but you shouldn't HAVE TO get used to it.
So this game is:
Unfinished
Crawling with bugs
Not very pretty
Hard to play
and YET it manages to make a fanbase pay thousands of dollars for it.
DF is, in fact, a singularity, a marvel that is too hard to understand. It shouldn't work, objectively spoken, and yet, it does. No other game on this planet is able to say that about itself.
As to why this article is praise, and not how some fo you seem to think, and attack, hey, look at the article. The author donated for this game as well.
Sure, the wording is a bit...aggressive. But hey, just wait until Yahtzee ever gets to review DF.