I don't think there's a way to really say a comment like this "with all possible respect" given the (albeit meager) content of the article.
Either way, I'd be much more willing to bet that if Toady had Opus/Sol/whatever we wouldn't have Dwarf Fortress, we'd just have Rimworld: perhaps a technically better game, but not !FUN! in the same way Dwarf Fortress is fun.
Why not? The code is famously convoluted and slow (see: dfhack). It's still an amazing accomplishment, but that doesn't make the code itself a challenge frontier models today aren't up to.
Either way, I'd be much more willing to bet that if Toady had Opus/Sol/whatever we wouldn't have Dwarf Fortress, we'd just have Rimworld: perhaps a technically better game, but not !FUN! in the same way Dwarf Fortress is fun.