Stats aren't holding RPG's back. They're just another way to play it, and they happen to be the way the majority prefer to play it. While its true some tabletop RPG's have moved away from them, consider that those ones are niche games at best. About the only ones you'll find in most bookstores are D&D and other offshoots by the same company. And in D&D groups, you'll find most players consider what class/race they want to play, consider stats and feats, and THEN think about who the character is outside of said stats. Only the more roleplaying-centric players put character before stats, but they're the minority. Stats and character building is the main draw of the RPG genre, especially as a video game genre.
So, with that said, no. The article is utter bollocks. And this is coming from someone who DOES engage in actual roleplaying. Most people don't want to play pretend. They want to slay goblins, get the best equipment, spells, skills, etc. Thats what they're in it for, and thats why they play RPG's. The actual "roleplaying" part of the genre's namesake was left behind even when the first RPG's started appearing on PC's and consoles. No one who got into Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Wizardry, or Ultima ever considered their character's backstories or personalities at all and I can assure you at least 90% of RPG players aren't going to play a game that tries to ditch them entirely. Heck, even those dialogue options popping up in recent western RPG's don't come remotely close to actual roleplaying. Players choose the options that keep the alignment they want so they can get the ending they want, and there's nothing more to it. They don't have a personality or background for their character, they're only concerned with beating the game or completing whatever objective is next on their agenda.
Now, that said, I don't think the concept of a graphical roleplaying environment (lets call them GRE's just to keep them separate from the RPG genre since, despite GRE's being the only one of the two actually focused on roleplaying, they're entirely separate concepts and deserve separate genres) should be at all abandoned. However, its not likely to be economically feasible. A game created solely to act out your characters is only going to appeal to the people who are already roleplaying on forums, chatlines, and MUD's/MUCK's. Its also going to have a very, very high budget in order to be able to create the kind of environment that roleplayers would want. You would have to have every object in the game able to be interacted with in every way the player might realistically be able to interact with it.
On top of that, much of the roleplaying that tends to go on isn't something you're likely to want in such a game. Most roleplaying done tends to be of the adult variety (heck, the most popular MUCK I know of is solely devoted to exploring sexual fantasies without restraint) so that needs to be dealt with in some way. And using Second Life as an example of a roleplaying environment is a bad example anyway, since there's no actual roleplaying going on there (doesn't stop 'that' from happening, but chances are most of it isn't being roleplayed) Second Life exists largely as an internet meeting place/virtual chat room.
You also have to consider playing to one's tastes. You can have all the medieval fantasy GRE's you want, but they're all going to die off because they likely won't attract enough interest to sustain just one, let alone any competition. The only such games to gain any sort of popularity would be the ones based on existing franchises, like Star Wars. Wherein everyone will either be a jedi and won't be able to rp one properly, or be a sith and think its an excuse to be as much of a jerk as they want to the other players. Not that I'd have any personal experience with dealing with that.
Long story short: Most players, myself included, are more interested in the statistical aspect of RPG's than the narrative aspect or any actual roleplaying (which, as mentioned, no current RPG truly has outside the tabletop) and, personally, I include myself in these numbers. I'm more interested in having my mage kill an army of orcs to level up and gain access to that new spell than I am in who my mage is supposed to be outside casting spells.
