Since When Has It Been About Reciprocal Linking?

Read an article today Are Reciprocal Links Dead? Google's Jagger Update where it said:
If the current indications are correct, we may be looking at the end of reciprocal linking as a method of building rank and link popularity, at least as far as Google is concerned.
I'm not sure I agree with this. What's going on appears to be about irrelevant links of ANY type, not just reciprocal links. If two sites in the same industry decide to swap links are they going to be ignored? I can understand devaluing links swapped between sites in totally different niches, but to say all reciprocal links could potentially not count toward link popularity doesn't make sense.