On the other hand, this research is attempting to be as objective as possible.
You must be joking. I've never seen a single author with this many axes to grind.
I know you like goldcoin.
I don't like goldcoin. However, I didn't have an opinion of goldcoin until I looked at their basic blockchain data.
The fact is, coins like goldcoin were designed to do one main thing; make their developers and first few adopters wealthy. Look at the data, they practically admit openly that the coin was meant to enrich early adopters (although they don't tell latecomers that...hmm).
You can call it an axe to grind all you want. I give every coin a chance to SHOW ME empirically something worth smiling about. Goldcoin has nothing of the sort to offer me. Now that I have seen what I shouldn't have seen, I don't like goldcoin. The same is true for all the coins.
In fact, I had to do some soul searching before I posted about Peercoin and Primecoin. I still support PPC, although not nearly to the extent I used to.