I did mention that option, and basically said it was a bad idea. I think that most SaaS apps are better served by offloading as much as possible onto third parties. Just like I wouldn't encourage someone to write their own web server, I wouldn't encourage them to write a subscription billing service. It's a pain. Pay someone else to handle that and focus on your core competency, whatever that is.
Right, having written a billing system, I'd agree with you wholeheartedly. I just got the impression that the article conflated rolling your own billing system with actual handing of the payments and credit card storage. Perhaps I was mistaken.