Maybe I misinterpreted what he wrote, but sanity checking the shiny new tech against fossilized tech of yesteryear to assure the new tech actually justifies it's higher cost doesn't sound like malpractice to me?

I mean he did use the state of the art for his work, he just checked how much better it actually was in comparison to a much simpler algorithm and thought the cost/benefit ratio to be questionable... At least that's what I read from his comments