Are Portland's blocks really special?

Laurie Olin talked some on Wednesday about the park blocks in Portland, so it was interesting to see this comparison of Portland's lauded blocks compared with the scale of those in other cities, including Barcelona. This was part of a interesting analysis on PlaNetizen by Douglas Pollard and Fanis Grammenos called Beloved and Abandoned: A Platting Named Portland. It sounds like they think size isn't as important as what you do with them. And their example of Ladd's Addition as a violation of the grid fails to highlight the great coffee/desert house in the middle.