It's too bad that the other thread[1] is blowing up with so many people missing the second half of the essay.
Keith - you might want to edit the opening paragraph of your first post[2] to include your point that you recommend NPM over Grunt/Gulp and add link to the second post. Without this component of the argument, the first article can be misinterpreted as whining / click bait
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8721078
[2] http://blog.keithcirkel.co.uk/why-we-should-stop-using-grunt...