Isn't there a middle ground where you can remain in the spirit of literate programming but still use libraries? It seems like that would be the best way . That seems like it would handle the biggest critique of the article unless I'm missing the point.
Yes, one can write libraries in literate style, and I have done so (http://monday.sourceforge.net/) in the past. However, from reading interviews with Knuth it seems that he does not find reusable software very interesting in itself.
