I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but the problem with this kind of quote is that the author is probably only guessing in the first place, then it gets repeated as fact.
I'd definitely agree with you. The scientific aspects of brewing are extremely complex with many different interacting biological, chemical, and physical processes. Most of the literature seems to be focused on increasing efficiency and not on comparison of taste. Unsurprising, given that breweries probably don't want to tell their competitors exactly why their beer tastes this way.
For an example of the challenges measuring something that was brought up earlier in this thread, take a look at
Meironke, Kasch, and Sieg (2016) where they attempted to use ultrasound doppler velocimetry to measure the fluid flow in fermenters of different geometries. They took some interesting data. However, when I read their conclusion it seems, to me at least, to read "this experiment is hard and our data is not good enough yet to draw strong conclusions." Given this paper, I would be hard pressed to make a strong statement like "it's wort motion that affects flavor."
At the end of the day, the result that seems to matter to commercial brewers is some combination of profitability and consumer taste (with the coefficient of each depending on the type of brewery). I believe AB InBev gave up trying to reproduce Goose Island's core range exactly as it was produced in Chicago. I think they decided that it was only the Goose Island brewers and hard-core fans in the original market who could tell and they'd make money regardless. I suspect the average shopper looking for a wheat beer in Wegmans doesn't care.
New Glarus, Russian River, and Sierra Nevada (and others) have decided that open fermentation is important to their product being successful. Clearly they must believe that it makes a noticeable difference to the consumer to invest in open fermentation. They have not published any research (as far as I can find) on its effect on flavor, or the reasons that it does affect flavor. Whitbread did publish showing that they can make a beer indistinguishable to consumers using either Yorkshire squares of cylindroconicals. But they adjusted both the yeast and hopping to do do.
On the home brew scale, I suspect the answer is to experiment with different techniques as time permits and drink the beer you like, brewed using the methods you like. RDWHAHBBUTMYL?