Pretty entertaining article.

It's great if you can stick to your core principles and freak out on people if they don't adhere to them but I suppose you've got to be able to establish your business first.
I attended a local food show where Hidekazu Tojo (owner of one of the restaurants listed at the bottom of the article) was doing a cooking demo and did some Q&A. He opened up his restaurant in the 80's when sushi was just getting established in Vancouver. One of the things he mentioned was that (paraphrasing here) he originally developed non-traditional items that would be better received by the locals to slowly introduce them to sushi. With the popularity of sushi nowadays, it's probably easier to do your own thing which, as the article mentions, can help you stand out from the competition.