That top comment is the one that really invalidated most of the article. Multiple monitors is to give you enough screen real estate for all components of task. It is not to stream twitch and watch Twitter scroll as you try to write in a text editor.
Putting distractions in a separate 'workspace' and making conscious decisions to switch contexts is a good idea, but it isn't related to having a second monitor, IMO.
I'll be happy if they can settle on a plan and stick to it for more than 6 months. The GChat, Voice, and Hangouts strategy has been frustrating because the features I wanted would land in different apps with varying levels of support. For example, hangouts dialer is nice for free voip, but I am not sure I can fully let go of voice.
Agreed, I don't think the full stream is needed either. It think being built of the free stream will serve the needs of making it open and still provide interesting data. Relative(sampling) usage graphs even seem more digestable and interesting to me.
Putting distractions in a separate 'workspace' and making conscious decisions to switch contexts is a good idea, but it isn't related to having a second monitor, IMO.