I doubt it; a great instrument always helps. This is one of those situations where, in my opinion, it’s important to understand the context. I am not going to defend Stereophile; it is an audiophile magazine and we are concerned about music first. Having said that, I have read some record reviews in that magazine that consider the music to a significant degree; iow, I personally would not be too quick to bash them. If insightful opinions about music is what I am looking for there’s much better sources out there.
Still, I know Wes Phillips from the days when he was a salesman at the original "Stereo Exchange" in NYC and and started writing for TAS, and I can tell you that the guy has ears and is an avid music lover and live concert goer. I cannot think of too many audiophiles (or even music lovers) who can name members of the NY Phil and is into jazz more so than most. That they credited the tune to the wrong composer is not good; but, again, "JazzTimes" probably wouldn't have. In keeping with the fact that he wrote for an audiophile mag, the comments about "Moanin" all have to do with "sound" and less about performance which was the reason I surmised he was talking about the piano: "rich trumpet tone", "power of the drums", "ambience", "decay", all audio-speak.