There's a third choice, though. It's bad when speed limits are much lower than the natural speed of the road, for the reason you describe. And it's good when the natural speed of the road is the safe speed of the road. But in addition to those two, it's also possible to introduce fast, automated enforcement— speed cameras.
This, of course, applies just as much to the actual topic of the Economist article; new inheritance taxes are just and good, but they should be written to be enforceable, and then they should actually be enforced.
The old meaning of the word "deprecate" meant to "pray against," or "to pray for deliverance from". As a software developer, I have always found this fact amusing. Software becomes deprecated not when it is actually limited or removed, but when the developers and maintainers begin to pray that God will deliver them from it.
From what I can tell, the polls were just really bad. Less than 1% response rates. This provided hope for various sides at various times but at the end of the day they basically aren't that useful.
When you see really goofy progressive taxes, if you look behind them, you'll usually see a strong legal or political barrier behind more sensible ones. This is why you are always hearing about ridiculous Amazon taxes coming out of the state of Washington; the place has no income tax, and progressive income taxes have been held to be unconstitutional there. So they have to get creative if they want a progressive tax.
Of course, the barrier in California is the infamous Proposition 13. You're right that charging people different rates for energy based on their income is silly; if they want to let the poor off the hook they should just tax them less, or even give them money. But the state's lawmakers are operating in a constrained environment.
(It's also the case that subsidies and means-tested benefits are trendy in Democratic policy-making circles, despite being dumb and inefficient compared to simpler and less directed benefits.)
I think you're holding some of these to too high of a bar. This is a one-page article intended to be posted in company bathrooms. Of course it's less comprehensive than a longer blog post.
Universal broadband access is a governmental program supported by Democrats to give Internet access to Republicans. Hard-nosed politics would suggest the program should not have a bright future. States can deal with this problem, or not, as they choose.