the point this article is making is that powerpoint is not useless because it is a great sales tool - precisely for the reasons tufte says it is anathema to clear thinking - that it is about control of the audience and not empowerment in the sense of allowing the audience to be on equal footing with information.

steve jobs is a great example of this - think "thousands of songs in your pocket" versus the GB size. Apple is a master of selective data slices to jazz up their keynotes, which are, after all, gigantic sales pitches.

i've done this myself with my own customers - a powerpoint deck is a way to control the entire conversation - to steer to strong points and conveniently not mention weak ones. it works really well with almost all audiences. people in most cases will allow the speaker to follow "the deck".

so - good for sales. not good for nasa. and this is the point tufte makes.

probably not good for booz-allen either, but it might explain their NSA security lapses, right? i'll hazard a guess their security review was a powerpoint deck.