There are some interesting things in the article (the Dumarest of Terra stuff is really interesting). But he blows the Sword World thing, a minor setting detail, way out of proportion. And in general I feel like there's some confusion of setting and theme Noir is a theme, not a setting. I can't say that I know enough about the history of Traveller and GDW, or even all eras of science fiction to make as many references as the author, so I don't have too much confidence in what I'm saying, but I do feel like he is missing something.
I find it weird that he doesn't mention the military adventure style of story. In this kind of story, a group of characters performs a mission that is basically unrelated to their personal lives, one that involves travelling somewhere dangerous to do something or find something out. The mission itself is unusual and might be seen as shady; it might even be thrust upon them. The equipment and areas of expertise of the group are very important. Most importantly, there isn't quite a main character: the story is about the group, and some of them might very well die, but there are probably 2 or 3 you like that you hope will live.
Doesn't that sound a little bit like Traveller? Those aren't even close to the elements of noir. It's true that the Traveller universe lacks a "good vs. evil" axis, which could lead to calling it 'amoral' but it takes more than crime to make a noir. Noirs generally have personal betrayal, set-ups, single main characters that navigate a web of intrigue, lies and traps, getting ahead by zigging instead of zagging and being good judges of character and good liars and schemers. There are femme fatales, stoolies, bosses.. sure you can incorporate elements of this in any game or run CT this way, but does that really sound like Traveller? I think the author means to say 'dark' when he says 'noir'.
Aliens was a military adventure, and fairly 'dark' SF, had a tiny amount of world hopping -- it was Travellerish -- and it was popular enough I think to almost immediately disprove the author's point. He parries it weakly by saying it's really like Traveller 2300. There's Serenity as well. Even Star Wars had a lot of common ground with Traveller: the whole climax of the movie is a military mission. I haven't seen the new Battlestar Galactica series but it meets some of the theme (probably its too character-based instead of military mission based). Stargate SG-1 was fairly damn Traveller-y too. Set Saving Private Ryan in space -- bam, you've got Traveller.
Star Trek (especially later), on the other hand, is so (especially later) D&D. A small group of characters sort of amble about in poorly defined circumstances with magical devices (and pointy ears!) getting in magical situations, undergoing magical transformations, fleshing out their backgrounds and interacting with recurring, super-powerful NPCs. They never quite have to do anything but assert their personalities or built-in character powers to escape whatever random peril they've blundered into this time in their vague pursuit of this or that. There's also something very superheroic about it, and something of Alice in Wonderland.
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that the military adventure stamp of Traveller is very apparent to me, and this is more of a theme than a setting, and that the theme is actually pretty popular in and out of SF. Certainly I think it might have inspired more of what Traveller is about than Piper's descriptions of a starry sky.
Now if we're just going to talk about the setting (and discard this nonsense about 'hard gritty noir' and missions and so forth) -- yeah, Traveller is showing its age, and really is part of a whole sci-fi type of universe that is fading away, perhaps...
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