Glad vanity metrics is being given a name. I've worked for one which obsessed about user signups long before we even had a product ready. It was ridiculous
I'm not a big fan of this brand of dogmatic skepticism.
I've skimmed through the paper, and from my limited college level physics, it seems like a plausible theory. Plausible enough to be worthy of publication and a modest amount of funding for further exploration.
There have been interesting conjectures in mainstream science about useful quantum effects in biology. Even neuroscience. (magnetic senses in some birds, for example). And since we don't know the tinest bit about how the brain functions, simply ruling out quantum effects is as ignorant as saying the brain solves P=NP. Just admit we don't, as a species know.
Also, I would suggest you read the article and the paper. There's little in there about consciousness.