Yeah, the first paragraph summarized the entire article, which is incredibly respectful of the reader's time. Presumably many sites intentionally leave this out in order to maximize revenue and "engagement."

It would save more time and avoid the appearance of impropriety if they declared their Microsoft sponsorship in the second paragraph, rather than after the article.

Edit: if it's unclear, this is not accusing anyone of bias: good writing should make any involvement in the subject matter explicit. See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appearance_of_impropriety The article is sponsored by modern.ie which is a Microsoft initative. I happen to agree with the article, however being forthright about these matters would strengthen its point.

No, it would just waste everyone's time. Why would you intentionally want to preface the meat of an article with disclaimers like that, especially if (as you say) the disclaimers wouldn't actually affect your interpretation of the article? That's pretty much the definition of cruft.

My own personal evaluation of Spartan is beside the point. The sponsorship is relevant and should be explicitly disclosed.

This is not new information though. Every page on the QuicksBlog contains the sponsorship information at the bottom of the page.

Other quirksmode articles, eg Introduction to JavaScript (front page, first article) do not take explicit positions on Microsoft technologies.

I've read him for years. He's not afraid to rake Microsoft over the coals and has done so for years.