Which doesn't make any sense, because the article also claims that the chip was soldered in place. Solder generally only works between two pieces of metal, making an electrical connection.

So either the chip was glued in place and not soldered or it was soldered and electrical connections were made. Either way, the article is wrong.

Standard operating procedure for a board with a messed up footprint is to glue the chip into place upside down, and then use patch wires to make the correct connections. Obviously you fix this for production boards, but I have personally seen this done for prototype boards.

Training personnel on prototype boards is also very common. It's also very common to do training on non-working boards.