"comprise" would be currently going through a transposition of meaning if English was an oral language. This should be perfectly fine and English would be the richer for it, i.e. we'd have a new useful way of 'aggrandizing a sentence' (as he mentions as a negative in his 6,000 word essay). Instead the 'hero' of this article is contributing to the fossilization and stagnation of the English language, making his case by appealing to etymology and notions of logicity [1] and precision more suited to a formal grammar. He specifically calls out its' novel usage (post 1970!) as being a negative.
I think his efforts are generally good, in so far as the phrase 'comprised of' might be a good signal that a new wikipedia contributer is trying to aggrandize their contributions over and above their knowledge, but I think he is misguided in dictating how language aught to be used.
Oral language does not require as large of a vocabulary. You can color the meaning of any spoken word by intonation and diction. If, for instance, you chose to speak only the word "dude", you could probably still make yourself understood to any native speaker.
As English lacks punctuation modifiers for altering the context and intent of a written sentence, we accomplish that end through an expanded lexicon, wherein several is more than a few and less than a buttload, despite each word representing an unspecified quantity.
English is far more likely to invent a new word, filch one from another tongue, or reuse a previously disused English word with a new sense or different part of speech, than it is to recalibrate the ordering of synonyms on a continuum of intent.
"Comprise" and "compose" are inverse terms. Using one when you mean the other initially generates confusion, and subsequently destroys the language model around composition. The whole comprises the parts, and the parts compose the whole. Passive voice is an inverting structure, so the whole is composed by the parts, and the parts are comprised by the whole. Include is a weaker form of comprise, without the implication of completeness (except in legal writing, where that implication is the default, and comprise is not generally used). But as the inverse of include is exclude, inclusion is more about membership in the set than about a level transition in the composition hierarchy. A league comprises teams, and a team comprises players. Yet a league does not comprise players; the league includes players. This is how we describe things precisely and concisely.
Oral use is much more forgiving of misuse, as it has error-correcting code in the form of context and intonation. Written use has a greater need for correctness, especially when such use is read by many, any of whom may repeat and propagate the error.
And I think parent post is incorrect. When you transpose or rotate the meaning of a word onto the meaning of an existing word, English is poorer for it. Once those meanings overlap, it is as difficult to separate them into different shades of meaning as it is to unlock gimbals. Also, "aught" is the shortened version of "naught", or zero, whereas "ought" is the synonym for "should" with a greater implication that the actor is obligated to perform, but not quite to the extent that he "must".
Logicity is perfectly cromulent, though someone should elucidate the conditionals for when it would be preferacious to logicality.
Made up word? You've used it, so it's real now. I like it. There's a certain truthiness to it.
I think your argument is a compelling one. The richness and color of our language (and, if I may, I'll make the distinction between the varying forms of English here - not all variations embrace the tinted varietals of words) is largely due to this organic growth and change of its usage. While personally I don't use "comprised of" (that I know of - my memory is imperfect), I don't know that I'd choose to battle over the usage of the phrasing. I recognize that some common phrases evolve out of this sort of natural mutation of language.
Biweekly, farther vs further, and so on. Many words have two completely disparate meanings, whether the meanings are formally accepted or not. It sucks. I don't know if one more word added to the list is such a big deal, given how big the list is.
I think his efforts are generally good, in so far as the phrase 'comprised of' might be a good signal that a new wikipedia contributer is trying to aggrandize their contributions over and above their knowledge, but I think he is misguided in dictating how language aught to be used.
[1] made up word, perfectly understandable