Test coverage is a plus but not more important. We have an end to end test system that runs on each commit. What I am saying is perfect code, simply written is way way more important than complete coverage. Tests, on my experience, don't make code better written or more concise. Given a choice between coverage and good code I choose good code. In my experience time is always short so I choose the time on good code. In practice this is a compromise anywhere but the most cashed up companies.
If I am understanding correctly, he is saying that well-written code requires fewer tests in order to be fully tested. Fully tested is better than untested, assuming that code is fully tested, well written code will require fewer tests.
That is my understanding, as it is rather hard to extract a solid argument from his posts.
He specifies "any tests", as do several other anti-test posts in this discussion, though often someone will reply to them and assume, like you have done, that they have another complex set of automated tests that they're happy about, and they're only railing against some unspecified subset of automated tests. I'm not sure if that's being over-charitable or not.
Oh I completely agree, and would much rather be working on a codebase with too many unit tests than too few. I'm trying to come up with the most charitable explaining that I can.