I haven't had to be inappropriately patted down yet (I don't fit any of the profiles, and really am not personally fussed by the x-ray scanners), but I am pretty convinced TSA searches are bullshit for one simple reason. When I travel, it's usually for work, and I am usually wearing cargo pants. Only once, ever has anyone asked to check whether I have anything in them. The x-ray might pick that up, but other screening, probably not, and the xray is pretty new. You can put an amazing amount of stuff into a multi-layered cargo pocket, and unless it's metal, it's not going to set anything off. Even in a pat down you'd have to physically stick your hand inside each layer of the pockets- if I put something flattish in there, you'd very easily not notice it with an exterior pat-down through up to 5 layers of cloth in some places.

I realize that might sound like a good reason for doing x-ray scans, but I think it points out the general lack of competence of the TSA- thanks to the insistence of keeping those jobs poorly paid, you end up with people who've clearly had poor levels of training, and trying to fix security by increasing tech rather than training your workers is pretty much always backwards.

As your linked article suggested, a pat down is not actually going to seriously prevent anyone from smuggling things on board unless it's of the full-on prison level cavity search level. I think most of what the TSA does is theater to make people feel safe, rather than addressing the actual issues of safety.