It was essentially this:

How can you best use your time to make a difference? Discuss. Sincerely, 80,000 Hours

I don't see how you got that summary. Benjamin Todd was not looking to start a vague discussion. He was looking to gather questions important to people trying to make a difference so that people 80K could research well thought out answers to those questions. This is a simple but important step in guiding ongoing research to focus on answering questions that matter, and we should not expect great depth in the presentation of this step. The in-depth, well written articles may come after questions have been gathered. If you want to see what they have written on research they have already done, look around on their site.

So, the way I would summarise is:

We are doing research on effective ways of making a difference in the world. Let us know what questions you have about how to make a difference, and we will see if we can focus some of our research efforts on answering your question.

I hope you will give it another look, and try to judge it not as a polished stand alone contribution, which it is not trying to be, but as an important step in a process that produces a valuable contribution.

(And though I swamped with many projects, I will see if I can write the article you are looking for, or find the right person to write it.)