I don’t blame the average homebrewer for not keeping up on every bit of historical research (even though Ron and others have been giving it away from free on their blogs for a really long time), but the editors at Zymurgy (and Brew Your Own) seem to have abdicated all responsibility for fact checking on historical beer styles. If the editors haven’t heard of Ron Pattinson and allow an article to go through that only cites a reference from 1993 (oh wait, its from Brewers Publications, so it must be ok) then they aren’t doing their jobs.
Here’s an idea. Find a homebrewer or historian or two and invite them to the editorial advisory board. And if there’s an article that makes a claim about historical beer styles, email it it to them and ask them if it stands up to what historical beer research has been saying. I’m sure Ron would rather give you feedback before it is published rather than have a heart attack while reading it after it is published.