I certainly don't know where you get this. There is never any convienient method of handling the human factor in these types of tests.
As for the the link, the phase response of the speakers would have been nice to know, but every speaker, has some phase/group delay anomoly. As long as the test was conducted with the exact same set of speakers in the exact same environment, then the "flaws" are consistent throught the testing and therefore have a minimal impact. Had either the testing environment or the speakers changed, even swapping them from left to right, then you would have intoduced a variable that would have to be seperately accounted for.
As to the quality of the speakers, is mearly a subjective opinion on your part, not to mention your comments regarding what the author should be doing with his time. Whether you want to believe it or not, those "mediocre" speakers have very likely been used in many, many studios to make mixdown choices.