Except in Slow Horses, most of them are exceptional at least in some way. Many of them are too difficult to work with, yes, but they do excel at _something_. That is very different from being _all around mediocre_.
It might have to do with the fact that (at least on iOS), you can participate in a Google Meet call with just the Gmail app, as well as authenticate sign-ins, and who know what more.
Could the main issue be Google is shipping apps within apps?
I feel like the article is not about this at all though. If you behaved according to the algorithm as a newbie, you would only refactor and change the design pattern if people told you that that should be done. Which your newbies weren't told according to what you're saying.