The given option to either swap the tag for something more descriptive or move it to CSS are contradictory. (I understand not wanting to rely on it for header information).
I just want to make the text bold, dangit. I am not writing an essay about how the text is feeling.
HTML should be used to structure and semantics, not to define content's appearance.
HTML can be converted into audio for blind people, used trough text terminal, used in many ways we don't expect.
You could use <span class="bold"> or <span style="font-face: bold;">, but that's just a more verbose version of <b>.
The whole point of the article is that you should use css for style and html for structure and semantics. Don't use markup for style. Have separate css file for that.
If you don't care or understand why that makes sense, just use bold.
It's hard not to read this as satire. All I want is for my text to be bold, dammit!
Just kidding.
Note that detailed descriptions of those elements bring better differentiation.
I use <strong> all over the place--though, after I was recently pointed at some of the new retconned HTML5 documentation, I did now wonder if some of my uses "should be" <b>; but, now I see the notes about <mark>, and I probably was wanting that one?...--and it makes HTML really annoying as a "markup" language as it causes massive discontinuities in the text I am reading/editing just to add some better inflection.
