The article does address the supposed lack of places to plant flags on (as if that
were the only reason to go). Quote here:

One disadvantage of this proposed architecture is that rather than going to a universally-known destination like the Moon or Mars, it involves, at least initially, going to quite literally an empty location in space, a concept that may be a little too abstract and difficult to grasp for the general public or politicians. As one person noted in a Q&A session after the talk, “once you’re there, there’s nothing to plant a flag in.”

“Well, we’ve already got lots of flags on the Moon,” Farquhar countered. “But you can put flags on the near Earth asteroids, and then we’re going out to Mars, and I think this is the main goal.”

“A lot of people think that all of these decisions have been made for the next 20 to 30 years,” said Farquhar, “and I don’t believe that.”

Farquhar added that the expense involved with going back to the Moon could prevent missions to Mars or elsewhere in the solar system for decades. “I think that if we get stuck on the cul-de-sac of going to the Moon, I don’t see us going anywhere else for the next 75 to 100 years, because that’s such a huge program,” he said. His alternative, he said, “is not going to be cheap, but it’s a lot cheaper than what they’re talking about as far as the lunar program is concerned” because a lot less hardware is involved.

Is L2 truly empty? Has anyone checked recently? How about the other L points?