The article mentions this but for me the truly great aspect of stripe is that they targeted the developer. I have dealt with several payment systems and most of them have poor documentation and getting them to work is a lot of trial and error. They appear to be monoliths who survive because management has chosen them.

Stripe provides excellent documentation and support (on #stripe in freenode). It just makes my life easier.

(I have never used Braintree so I can't comment on it)