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It's pretty easy to say "should have more stations" for the metro. But there's a balance that needs to be decided between station frequency and travel time. One of the biggest impacts on travel time is station frequency - not because of the actual stop, but because the trains take a long time to accelerate and brake. So more stops means the train moves much slower.
Seems logical right? So if you're connecting the CBD and Parramatta, what's the goal? I assume in this case it was to get faster connections between Parra and the CBD, rather than to serve a heap of suburbs along the way with metro. Whether this was right or wrong is a good debate, but given Parramatta by itself is one of Australia's biggest cities and the Sydney CBD is unbelievably constrained by its geography, it does make some sense (a high speed shuttle might make more sense, but that would have criticised as a waste too).
It would make more sense if it was paired with say...light rail running the length of Parramatta Road, connecting all the suburbs that the 'quick' metro stop frog-leaps over. But integrated public transport projects never happen here for a variety of weak-spined political reasons.
It's been a while since I was involved in any Sydney rail projects, but there's a surprising amount of 'expansion' potential built into a number of existing stations. Some of these may never be realised, but for the Zetland issue, I'd be surprised if the Hunter St station & tunnel hasn't been designed with the ability to eventually connect to an Eastern/South Eastern metro line.
However, although this makes sense to all the people to work in the Sydney CBD, the CBD actually accommodates a surprising small proportion total Sydney workers. Many more people work in the greater Sydney area. It would make much more sense to start connecting a few of these lines through other centres in greater Sydney which would have the added benefit of increasing the relative desirability of places other than the central Sydney ring of suburbs due to improved access.
I think if the SMH actually crunched the numbers, they'd find a few potential metro projects more worthy of the Zetland CBD connection. However I imagine that there's a few SMH staff members who live there which is why it's become a campaign for them. I'm not saying this is necessarily out of self-interest, but it's a complex problem with an easy story and solution in Zetland. Much sexier to report on than say...a metro linking Chatswood and Burwood for example.
Yes, there does seem to be a skewed representation of the inner city or inner west. I think (although I'm purely speculating as well) that you're right the writer likely lives around that area. In fact journalism for the past 20 years seems to have conflated "news" with personal opinions (I know this is expressly noted also an opinion piece but I feel it generally) and then presented as factual.
Perhaps we do need as many "metro" stations as possible for the most populous areas within a 10km radius, but just many more heavy rail stock outside those areas with degrees of "express-ness".
In Paris, Tokyo and New York, for example, their metro/subway is really just useful for the most central areas, then the heavy rail has a variety of (using Tokyo terminology) super express, limited express, express, local to balance time and speed vs distance... you just need to get on the correct train.
Zetland seems to belong to the populous / dense / central area, but as do all the other hubs around Sydney... maybe each "village" needs its own metro network, connected by heavy rail between them, like a hub-and-spokes system?