Andy Ruina is a great guy to listen to about stuff like this. There's an annual conference for scientists in all fields (robotics, biology, cognitive science, etc.) that study walking locomotion called Dynamic Walking; our lab hosted it in Pensacola last summer and Andy gave a "Greybeard" talk about the mechanics of sailboats and sailing down wind faster than the wind that was really entertaining.
I'm not sure where his fascination with esoteric mechanics comes from, but he has a pretty clever and engaging manner of discussing the stuff.
Edit: Didn't realize that Ruina was a co-author on the paper referenced in the article. Even better. It all goes full-circle.
Now I read this, and the article, and now I am confused, because I was a staunch believer it was gyroscopic effect fault, now the thing can work without a gyroscope and what the hell?
