The difference is that pre-Core-30, Bitcoin did not officially support large file storage. So node operators had much less culpability.
As for the "lawyer consensus" in that article you linked, you must not have read it if your conclusion is that "this is not a real risk". Almost all of the lawyers in the article said it's a risk.
The question is whether Core 30 meaningfully increases the risk. I think it's obvious that it does, as I said above. Data spam is a slippery slope. We have to draw the line somewhere, and this may be our last chance to draw the line. BIP-444 is the line.
