government with checks and balances don't get lost. It is just that checks and balances become weaker for parliamentary system. But, the biggest check & balance mechanism, 4-year election cycle, has become stronger. Election campaign has become a 2-year event with extensive media reports. 20+ states now have ban faithless electors, which means popular votes of each state solely determine the election result, i.e. more direct democracy. It's empirically true, democracy with checks and balances didn't work well in a deeply divided country.
Anyway, in my opinion, these people from your link failed to identity the real issue: Today's politicians are driven by election. Even you change some game rules of election, sooner or later politicians will figure out a way how to play new election rules and take advantage of them.