I mostly agree with the article, even though I will say that many server-side frameworks aren't as bad as their client-side cousins so long as they're not for node.js.
There are two major issues with server-side frameworks--particularly for PHP--that I see.
1) Many of them were created to fill "gaps" or flaws in the language that haven't existed since before PHP 5.2. This is particularly true of the ones that involve accessing SQL "their way" as they were made at the time of the long deprecated "mysql_" or "mssql_" functions. If you learn to use PDO, a good chunk of what these frameworks exists for becomes a pointless redundancy.
2) The bigger issue is the attempts to shoe-horn certain programming models in where they just don't fit. Like shoving a cow's size 14 into a size 9 pump. MVC is the poster child for this, as for 99% of what I do or would do with PHP, it doesn't fit.
I applaud the idea of separations it makes, and have used it in places where its circular relationship of data flow makes sense. C++ in pervasively multithreaded environments like BeOS / Haiku, RTOS motor control interfaces under QNX or Oberon. Even Windows API and GTK software can benefit from MVC.
But with PHP someone's trying to shove their 3" diameter round **** into a 2" per side triangular hole.
PHP is linear, straight line execution of task requests. There is no circular relationship between the view and the data! As such trying to force MVC in just results in WRITING two to ten times the code needed to do the job, mated to deploying five to twenty times what's needed.
And much like with the mind-numbingly dumbass RUBBISH that are front-end frameworks, how the hell is using ten times the code needed "easier"?!? Or "better for collaboration".
Like so many frameworks, the likes of Larabel, Codeignitor, etc, etc seem to be created and used by people who go "I don't want to learn the underlying language, so let's work ten times harder and add even more crap on top to learn."
I do not get the appeal. It all seems pretty asinine to me.
More so when the lame excuses like "don't reinvent the wheel" come along, given that in most cases what these scam artists framework do is sucker you into replacing the non-drive wheels of a car with two skateboards.