[asdfas123414]

You are absolutely correct with your description of the user interface principles you espouse. Provide the right help information at the right time but otherwise stay out of the way.

However, I believe the author's sentiment was more focused on situations where programmers use instructions to avoid more complex display or validation logic. IE, less work to add some text than to properly display/hide form sections based on skip patterns.

"If you are an X, then you have to fill in Y and Z. If you are not an X, please only fill in Z, unless Z=1, then you should fill Y too." This is typical of programmers being ‘smart’ by avoiding some extra steps/code...