In the Netherlands the situation is pretty much the same. I personally never use recruiters to find a job. I had put my CV shortly up on a website and got harassed months after with job vacancies that didn't even relate to my CV. Most developers around me also hold a grudge against recruiters and see it, like mentioned in your article, as a necessary evil.
In the Netherlands, the recruitment market has in the past few years been flooded with extremely aggressive recruiters from the UK. The majority the recruiters I encounter are British, even though they are recruiting Dutch developers for Dutch employers.
It's a global issue. A lot can be done to change it though. Have a look at my previous post 'Questions from my experiences as a recruiter on Hacker News' for tips on how to deal with sub-par recruiters.
I think the advice you give is interesting, though i'm more curious to hear why you think people should use a recruiter in the first place? I can see the potential training or retouching of a CV, but i feel somewhat confident that i got that right. So then, what's left?
And isn't the harassment a trade-off for, as what i perceive, being too lazy to find a job yourself?
It's not nice being treated as livestock.