Like I said before, they wouldn't have used the term at the time, but their complaint would have most certainly been that it was metagaming. What stuck in their craw was that it didn't emulate "real life" and a person didn't decide, after they were born, what their charisma or intelligence was. This was a choice that the player was making outside of the world that they thought the rules were trying to imitate.
More to the point, I think that what I was trying to illustrate was that maybe the concept of what metagaming "is" has more to do with what the person writing the definition is used to, and what the new version of the game is doing differently.
That would be what one side seems desperately intent on proving for some reason. I have said prior to the start of the campaign it is all metagaming. The character doesn't exist yet. What I don't like is while I'm actually being my character, roleplaying if you will, that I as the player start making decisions that the character could not make. For example, when I cast a spell and it disappears in game from my prepared spells, my character knows that without a doubt. If though I am a fighter in 4e, and I use a daily power, there is no real in game explanation for why my character is expending this valuable resource. The player knows and tracks it but the character is oblivious.
And sure, metagaming is a broad term and perhaps different people use it different ways. That is why I defined it for the purposes of this discussion. I saw confusion was occurring so I tried to nail down what I meant. Whatever it is that I don't like, whatever name you want to give it, it is a real thing and it bothers real people (to varying degrees of course). It doesn't bother other people and those people seem the hardest to explain the concept to. I believe there is a correlation there.
Other names for the concept include
Dissociative Mechanics - this is so loaded due to the blog post that set all sides into a practically shouting war over the concept. I avoided this term mainly to try to keep us on topic. Let's have some ideas on how to fix this issue for THOSE that think it is an issue. For those that don't think it is an issue, who are not wanting to be condescending or snarky, we welcome your advice to us to help us. Those who can't avoid being disruptive or deny the very existence of the problem should just avoid this thread.
Dissonant Mechanics
Metagame Mechanics
Director / Author mode games
etc..
Again the mere mention of some of those other terms may prove inflammatory which is not my intent. I disagree with the author of the blog post about what roleplaying actually is. His point perhaps should have been that this approach diverges from traditional roleplaying in ways he doesn't like. Again play what you want. That is not my intent. If someone started a blog about running a game in author mode, I'd either try and think of an idea that was really helpful or I'd just skip that thread. I don't need to fill it up with posts about how something that bothers me doesn't really exist and I should just get over it.