Ugh, I hate that article. It's practically dripping with condescension for everything that came before 4e. No wonder that 4e lore is such a ****show when that was the attitude behind it.

A whole bunch of the fire archon's weirdness (both flavorwise as an elemental that needs to breath or eat, and abilitywise) is propably because it's a 4e creature that was essentially backported.