Okay, after reading the article, I still find the premise of this fucking stupid but it could be great I guess. It just seems more than a little unnecessary. If they're trying to reel in old SSX fans while trying to bring in new ones, they're sure as hell doing an awful job at the latter.
Personally all the mentions of Skate started to worry me at first because of what has been said about the direction of the game. Skate sucks. Skate is slow. Skate is boring. Skate's controls are terrible. Using Skate an inspiration is the most damning thing to this game for me, personally. Thankfully they went the opposite route and realized Skate is not the right direction for SSX.
Still, it could be good. By "appealing to everybody" they can have arcade-y, balls to the wall, in your face SSX in the same game as this snowboarding sim thing. So two different audiences could come away with the same enjoyment from the same product for different reasons.
Plus the fact that they're actually making tracks is good, because SSX at its core, has always been a racing game. I'm so happy they're not making the game just a bunch of stupid computer generated generic mountain "sandbox" and are opting to include actual level design.