I find the author to be looking at ORM the wrong way, the way I see it: ORM just gives you basic features that you would probably write yourself, you still have need SQL for more complex stuff.
Basically it's just a standard way to do the basic stuff.
If you want optimized select queries, you can still write them, also inserts are optimal with ORMs.
Inserts are not at all necessarily optimal in ORMs. Inserts can be just as complex as select queries, since they can include arbitrary select queries. A trivial case of that being.
INSERT INTO a SELECT * FROM b;
I personally have not felt the need to use and ORM yet. But then I have not built a CRUD heavy app either. Instead most of my time spent on database work is centered around reporting and other complex queries where no ORM I have seen yet helps much.
Basically it's just a standard way to do the basic stuff.
If you want optimized select queries, you can still write them, also inserts are optimal with ORMs.