These thing are not mutually exclusive. He can ask both his team and slashdot, perhaps feeding suggestions from slashdot back to his team for comments before making a final decision. No need to assume the guy is a bad manager, even if there are plenty of bad managers around.

Hey, we know its an unfair criticism, compared to small densly populated countries like Japan and Korea...Still, articles like this may light a fire under some suceptables asses, and get us better broadband.

Sweden, one of the other countries mentioned, has 21.87 people per km^2 of land, which is less than 31.98 in USA. [number are from the CIA factbook] Population density cannot be a reason why the criticism is unfair.