I would argue that the latter 2 things are not truly needed, and can be iterated on over time. You don't need a CMS, you already have one built into your server: the file system. You don't need a browser-based UX, it's a nice to have. If surviving Reddit's front page is your goal, it's pretty easily doable.
_You_ might not need a CMS, but I guarantee that the vast majority of content sites that pull in 10MM visitors+/day have a cms.
You make a good point that if you're just a simple blogger firing off posts in a defined layout, you may as well just hand code html and send static files. I took the point of his post to be more for people who know they have to offer a CMS, and want some basic scaling settings.
