Could be - when I edit my own stuff to make it fit a word count criteria, I sometimes have to ask: What did I start out to say? Then I must clarify and focus on that. The copy that winds up on the cutting room floor, so to speak, can be gathered up, if it's good, and used somewhere else - but just as often the scraps are best left where they lie. Typically the discipline of paring down produces better writing.
If Stuter's piece takes the form that it does because of a word count edit, as opposed to an expanded rewrite that adds more to an original word count, he has pared the fat from the lean. Unfortunately, too much lean has hit the floor, and too much fat remains.
