Banth, welcome. You're apparently referring to one of Alan's articles which discusses using ambience extraction such as DPLII. His analysis is correct. The majority of sound reaching us at a concert doesn't come from the front, bur rather as reflections from other directions. Playing this from the front channels(there's no place else to put it in a two-channel CD recording)simply isn't the same as extracting the ambience and playing it from surround speakers, which more closely corresponds to the reality of the live performance. Nothing "artificial" is involved, which should be obvious when the technology involved is studied sufficiently.
I never use only the front speakers with two-channel source materials when surrounds are available, instead applying a mode such as DPLII. Switching suddenly to straight stereo from surround clearly demonstrates how the sound field collapses toward the front(despite room reflections)and results in less reality.
