From the article: "Flow routing has introduced an important innovation that can help alleviate the capacity crunch: Routers do not need to route every packet, only the first packet in a flow."

He has just described Multi Layer Switching.... something which has been around for years. From Cisco:
"The packet forwarding function is moved onto Layer 3 switches whenever a partial or complete switched path exists between two hosts. Packets that do not have a partial or complete switched path to reach their destinations are still forwarded in software by routers. ...
IP MLS allows you to debug and trace flows in your network. You can identify which switch is handling a particular flow by using MLS explorer packets."

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/catalyst5000/hybrid/mls.html#wp10207