> Mindstorms has been around for almost 14 years now, but Mindstorms EV3 marks the first time that users can program directly onto the brand-new EV3 Intelligent Brick. In past iterations, users were only allowed to program their robots from the computer

This isn't correct at all. I've had a MINDSTORMS kit for several years now, and I've been able to program on-brick since the beginning.