Interesting article. I also personally favor the Mahon approach. I also played around with the “hammer interval” concept last year, primarily doing 1-2 minute repeats with every third or fourth repeat very hard. I thought those prepared me very well to handle surges on race day.
I think this also goes back to the tempo run idea mentioned by Magill. Tempo runs, especially in base training, shouldn't leave you wiped out. That said, the occasional time trial – which essentially is a hard tempo run – can be beneficial at the right time.