The modularity advantage of shared state's "spooky action at a distance" when properly employed is not a fresh insight. It's even addressed in good textbooks on programming such as van Roy and Haridi's Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming. Here's an old related LtU post by van Roy: http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/classic/message9361.html. Another dramatic example (which is one of the book's exercises) is revocable capabilities.
James Hague would know this as he was the second replier to van Roy in the thread you cite. Freshness of the insight is hardly the point.
I'm glad you posted it, though. It's a good discussion. I particularly agree with this formulation of van Roy's: It is the overall simplicity of the system that counts, not whether it is written in a functional or stateful style. Using true state in the right places makes the system simpler overall.
My comment was not meant to disparage James, so there's no need for you to valiantly leap to his defense. It was just an attempt at putting his observation into a wider context. :)
