This passage from the article is interesting:
"As such, he had to bring in musicians to properly test out the prototypes of his guitars."
The reason that is interesting is that it reveals that the end product was the result of the input from a multiplicity of people. The Les Paul, on the other hand, was developed more along the lines of what one man, Les Paul, wanted and valued.
This may reveal why Fender's products initially appealed to so many so quickly. Since he essentially had more "beta testers", if you will, there was a greater chance that it would have features that appealed to a wider range of players.
Also, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense that Leo wasn't a player. Since he had no preconceived notion of how a guitar "should" be, he had no paradigm that would be a roadblock to suggestions from musicians who tested his ideas.
The Les Paul, on the other hand, bears all the hallmarks of traditional guitar design at the time. It is, in a very real sense, a smaller, solid-body jazz guitar. With the exception of the solid body, it was built much the way any other jazz guitar would be built, to include the trapeze tailpiece. The stop bar came later.
With the exception of the misstatement about Leo inventing the solid-body bass, it's an interesting and thought-provoking article.
