Needing to "hack" hardware you spent a lot of money on because the company is trying yo control it after the sale - seems like a reason to at least bash them..

Yeah, but I don't think that has anything to do with the console's Bluetooth stack, though. If a game requires a specific controller, that's usually so that controller-specific features (like touchpad/gyro) will work, which wouldn't work with an otherwise-standard controller HID profile. This also wouldn't prevent the device from pairing, which is quite specific terminology that the author uses.

But the way the author describes it, it sounds like at an OS-level that you can't pair third-party bluetooth accessories, which is such a wildly inaccurate statement to start an article off with, and immediately makes me question the credibility of everything else they write.

I use it for emulators and some side scrollers on my laptop running CachyOS. Works beautifully.