imho not so great article, its still best to build all the things you use yourself. Third party scripts are a pain and take about the same time to check for errors, bugs and faults then writing some from scratch. I dont mean that you need to re-invent the wheel, but you can make a wheel that drives even better on your road..... instead of using a drupal to make your website....
I dont really understand this line
"Some registrars offer to hide your contact info, but then they will own of your domain." They simply create a alias for your details and show their own details. Just to hide it from public view. However when you will do business with some parties, e.g. payment systems etc, they usually want to be able to the proper whois details for a domain. And not a anonymizer profile.
I register domains via namecheap.com, decent service, reasonable priced only systems sometimes at certain times a bit sluggish. They also have a fun marketplace, where sometimes you can buy some fun domains for little price, 4 char .com domains etc
And i agree with patio11, start the aging process of the domain, the faster the better.