If the argument made in the article, that almost no-one pays, is true, why shouldn't the government abolish it completely (unless it's about making money for for lawyers and life insurance companies)?
With no planning whatsoever, under current law estates (of married people - which is now expanded) under ~$22MM should owe no federal estate taxes. The huge shock when the most recent tax law passed was that they didn’t do away with step-up in basis at death.
Families with a decent number of children and grandchildren also usually take advantage of annual exclusions for gifting. Combine that with some common techniques to leverage gifting, as well as charitable planning, and you can easily transfer most 8 digit estates without much difficulty.
Which leads to the (relatively) few 9 digit and above estates. Those obviously present more of a challenge (except when a person is very charitable, in which case a world of planning opens up, that can leave their family and favorite charity with more money at the expense of Uncle Sam), and that’s where the big $$$ are for the tax to make sense as a revenue generator.