The editorial is misguided crap.
Again, an enthusiast is assuming the average consumer has any knowledge or cares about the minute details.
I'm an enthusiast and even I don't care. There are 100,000 apps for me to choose from and I've pretty much already got what I need anyway. I can read Kindle books, I have Office, I can browse the web and I have a few games, Netflix and several options to stream radio and music.
What else do I need?
Is there going to be a WP8 only app introduced before the end of my contract that is so incredibly amazing that my life won't be complete with out it? No. If I cared THAT much about having every app, I wouldn't have chosen Windows Phone in the first place. I could go out and get an iPhone or an Android and have more and better apps than WP8 is going to have even 2 years after it's been launched.
Most people go to the store and they choose a phone based on the phone itself. They aren't researching OS updates. The VAST majority of people DO NOT perform a major OS update on their phone anyway. If they can get a few games they want, go on Facebook and surf the internet and listen to their music, they are happy. They don't obsess over the details of some OS upgrade and what API's it has. Most people have LIVES and don't care about this crap to that detail.
So, no, it's not going to hurt sales much because Microsoft isn't Apple and nobody outside of phone nerds even noticed the announcement Microsoft made about WP8. They are much more likely to have seen a Lumia commercial and when they go to the AT&T store, the guy in the store isn't likely to say "don't buy a Lumia because you can't upgrade to WP8" unless he's a jerk who just wants to push the latest Android junk. And people are unlikely to ask about OS updates BECAUSE NORMAL PEOPLE DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT.
The new start screen will be nice. The only other things I'd like to have would be separate volume controls and orientation lock. If they can manage to give me those things with 7.8 I will be beside myself with joy.
Everything else I want is a hardware limitation that requires me to get a new phone anyway, like higher resolution and more memory.
So I'm perfectly content to use my phone for another 18 months, I'm confident the 100,000 apps that are out there have me covered, I'm never going to use them all. No earth shattering WP8 app is going to be introduced in the next 18 months that is going to make me cry because I can't have it.
In 18 months, there will likely be an awesome pureview Lumia with 1280x720 resolution and a multicore processor, and I'll probably get that.
Between now and then, I have nothing to worry about. At all.