What they’re confused about is how it was deemed necessary to spend all that time and money on making a game look that good but not to do the same for the gameplay. It’s insane that they can make a world with such immense detail that most people probably won’t even see but don’t value the effort that would make it play well, something that everyone notices. It’s in the title, it’s about the dissonance.
You’re agreeing with the author of the article. They even point out pretty much exactly what you said when they said “How can someone look at this, this majesty, and say, “Hmmm, seven out of ten?” And then a guard sees me through a solid hillside and ruins fifteen minutes of painstaking stealth, and I wonder how it can be on sale at all.”
To put details to other person’s point: Even if you lived pretty close, for a lot of things, the gas cost would probably offset a lot of the savings. For big things for sure it would make some sense but for other things it just wouldn’t make any sense. You’d have to live right on the border and have a town with stores that carry whatever you’re buying also be pretty close.