He neglects to mention the new trend of adding images and in particular screen caps with animated gifs. In my opinion this new trend has been a major improvement to READMEs. I can often just watch the demo to both understand what it is and even how to use it. This helps since I'm often too lazy to read the whole thing.

You may have not noticed with the current Node.js fad, but README does not constitute a documentation. README is just a description of the project, along with some contact information.