More stupid stuff:
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The fact that the engine was designed with such a dumb method of driving the cams dumbfounding to begin with. Why not drive them just by taking the drive from the front of the crank like any other company would?
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If the author knew anything about Porsche's, he/she would have known that Porsche had successfully used an intermediate shaft on the air-cooled flat-six engines for what seemed like an eternity (thru 1998) without any problems.
Did you know this? Its true. Use of an intermediate shaft wasn't new to Porsche on the M96. What was new was the type of bearing used in the M96 (ball bearing). This is where they screwed the pooch.
The air cooled IMS used a regular (plain) bearing that was continuously fed pressurized engine oil for lubrication (and as such, they never failed). A bad bearing resulted in a knocking sound like a bad rod due the increased clearance, but they never resulted in catastrophic engine failure.
Porsche followed this tried and true approach (oil fed plain bearing) on the
other end of the M96 intermediate shaft where the oil pump is located and this is why that end of the shaft never fails - failure is always at the ball bearing side. Porsche should have figured out a way to get oil to both ends of the IMS so they could employ plain bearings at both ends and the problem would have been eliminated.