Don't be confused... just two different people going at it two different ways. I don't think that only after a month or two of a tank being up and running, anyone can say anything is "flourishing". It takes a while for things to go south. But when it does start, it can go in a hurry. However...
Looking at that post and reading between the lines, it sounds like the person started out with cured live rock. (Either that, or it was really expensive rock!) Starting out with enough precured rock can avoid a cycle because you have a lot of bacteria coming in with the rock to start with. In addition, they were doing a couple water changes a week. Those two things probably helped tremendously.
That's different from your scenario because you started out with minimal (if any?) live rock, and started your cycle with a damsel. So you had to keep doing water changes during the cycle to keep the ammonia/nitrite levels down to a bearable level for the fish. That prolongs things. Doing a fishless cycle allows you to just let the ammonia/nitrite do it's own thing and go as high as it wants, more or less.
Would I personally recommend to folks to start up a tank like that? No... but that's just me. I'm a slow, methodical type and while I'm not the most patient person in the world, I am with my tank because I just don't want to risk screwing it up. But you're right... that's a lot of fish in a 14g, and adding that many corals that quick before the water parameters have stabilized for a few months runs the risk that they might die if the water parameters start becoming an issue. But there's very few "right" answers in this hobby - just a lot of different ways to get there.
