Interesting, although I don't know enough about MTG to get the nuances of your analogy. (Certainly know enough to be entertained.) Two things, though. 1) I'm certainly not trying to cast a negative light on going public, and I don't think the author of the article is either. He's just presenting a correlation. It's generally a good idea. 2) Trading publicly isn't money for nothing, exactly (though I know what you mean) -- and more importantly those two options at the end of your post aren't the only options for an up-and-coming company. Slight oversimplification there.
Yeah, it definitely is an oversimplification. But! The oversimplification, minus the Magic analogy, comes down to this: if you are doing something now that makes you money, and you can change to doing something which might make you money, you should be very wary of changing. If your goal is to make more money.