Kind of. It took nearly two minutes to drive that skinny main though three skinny boards. A metal brad of the same size would go through that would in 3, maybe 4 whacks.
The way they were hitting it looked either like they had never hammered before, or that they were afraid of shattering the nail.
Yeah, honestly, I was super interested when I saw the title and read the article, but when I saw both of the videos (the steak cutting one and the nail one), I thought "Are they trying to use these demos to convince people of the inferiority of the wooden products?"
In the steak cutting one, the way one little edge piece is cut off looks like a plastic butterknife could have done just as well. Your description of the nail driving one was spot on - that video was downright embarrassing.
I thought you were being mean or exaggerating or something, because after eight or so whacks I thought they had driven it through. Nope. Very delicately handled.
The way they were hitting it looked either like they had never hammered before, or that they were afraid of shattering the nail.