The editorial at A&V felt a little cold and its approach algebraic, but it was not counterfactual, as far as attempts to focus on the trees of a forest go.

The reason the anime focuses on Miki, Chihaya, and Haruka is that they are designated leader of each "color": Miki is yellow or "passion", Chihaya is blue or "cool", and Haruka is pink or "cute". I remember that Shiny Festa for iPad/iPhone caused quite a stir among the casuals when it came out in the standard 3-edition set and they balked at paying the combined price since they weren't familiar with the trident of NAMCO. Clearly anime does not communicate the background of the 3-fold subdivision and Otou could not deduce it for the editorial.

UPDATE: Omo sums it up thus: Otou's post "unravels the cunning calculus beneath, by all means, a mundane product tie-in/advertisement. [...] It’s easy to write about smarts in a smarty-pants show, but I need that like another EN blog post on Utena or another article about chuunibyou." And! He prompts IKnight to tweet: "Omo touches on a long-held opinion of mine: analysis of something which doesn't invite it is more impressive."