Your organization needs to suppoort saying no; it's easy to say this from an ivory tower perspective but you have to have management and executive support. At some companies the culture simply is that you will do what you need to do to help. If you try to single handedly change this without the power to do it (and DBAs are often staff, not management) it can adversely affect your career.

However, the article was spot on in general. A DBA needs to think before the perform any task and that seems to be the main message, one that is often difficult for junior DBAs to pick up. Part of the value a DBA provides is adding the extra filter and layer of protection to the systems.