[cycomanic]

I agree with what you're saying about the introduction and I think a lot of this depends on the exact type of article you're writing for. I also think the other has some point on the intro text. I work in optical telecom and many papers start with "the exponential increase in data demands over the last decades..." literally everyone in our field knows this. You don't need to be that general in technical conference papers. However if you write for e.g. Nature, Science or another high impact journal, the sentence is important because outsiders don't necessarily know about this.

Regarding the conclusion, I disagree with you and the author at least for short (2-4 Page) conference contributions. The Committee members are reading ~50-100 papers and often they read the abstract, intro and conclusion in detail and look at the figures. Those things will get your paper accepted. Essentially you want to stake your claims explain why they are important and show that you actually did what you claim. That should be seen from those things alone. That often means it should be possible to understand the paper/results from the conclusion. This is not a novel with some great reveal. That said, don't just summarize your paper draw conclusions.