I agree that the article exhibits unmerited grandiosity,

The article does not use the term.

“quantum activity” is a real thing insofar as it is a shorthand for quantum coherence extending to a (relatively) macroscopic scale

I’ll need a source for that.

This actually goes along with your underlying point, which is that it is not clear that we need fancy mechanisms as a sort of magic touch to explain all of these things.

If you look closely enough, everything is “quantum”. Something being “quantum” is simply a matter of not being able to get away with using a simplification. I don’t really see why that would matter. That this question has nothing to do with consciousness is obvious.