I remember having two Jurassic Park velociraptor toys as a kid. One had the arms positioned as in the film but, oddly enough, the other got it right, as in the article.
I remember 2 being harder plastic and 1 being the more rubbery one. Though I could well be wrong. Sold all that stuff years ago except three or four of the bigger ones, which my kids play with.
Maybe, but it's intended to be actively grabbing with them, not at rest (so having them turned correctly is probably just an accident, not a correction of the earlier pose) so the curved-in hands might make sense—I didn't get the impression from the article that their wrists and "fingers" can't bend. The toy would move the arms in a grasping motion when, IIRC, you pulled the legs a certain way. Something like that.
I remember the texture and the smell of the rubber after 20+ years.