Take a hypothetical situation, whereby you have one trail, one rider, x number of bikes (of varying amounts of suspension, from none to full DH rig) and identical conditions every time. One of the full suspension bikes will usually clock the fastest times, but not necessarily the one with the most travel, depends on the trail and how gnarly and DH it is. That said, if there is lots of climbing involved, I’d put my money on a hardtail getting round quickest. The article is probably right, in that with the majority of UK riding, if you only had the one bike, a short travel FS would be the best compromise and offer the best all-round combination. I ride a Flux and it is more than sufficient for 90% of the riding that I do. Then again I’ve been very happy to have the extra travel, and slightly slacker head-angle of my 5.Spot on some of the steeper, rockier descents in the Peaks. Kind of agree that a good rider will be fast whatever the bike, but there’s no doubt that big old FS bikes can plough through roughstuff faster, and forgive more mistakes, than shorter travel or hardtail, so people can (and do, myself included) go faster on them.
Kind of lost my point somewhere in all of that 😀
At the end of the day though, its about having fun, so ride whatever takes your fancy and enjoy