No, it doesn't. "The decisions" refers to those that the design/product team made (see paragraph preceding the GP's quote)---the same changes that were made and roundly panned by Googlers.
Inbox, on the other hand, is "specifically designed from the ground up for advanced users who have to handle a firehose of incoming emails every day" (last paragraph of the article).
To summarize the article: the Gmail team decided that Gmail should be geared toward non-power users; power users of Gmail (Google employees) hated this decision; Inbox was born as a product specifically for power users. In the meantime, (some) power user affordances were kept in Gmail, but better hidden.
Inbox, on the other hand, is "specifically designed from the ground up for advanced users who have to handle a firehose of incoming emails every day" (last paragraph of the article).
To summarize the article: the Gmail team decided that Gmail should be geared toward non-power users; power users of Gmail (Google employees) hated this decision; Inbox was born as a product specifically for power users. In the meantime, (some) power user affordances were kept in Gmail, but better hidden.