A few comments on the story, more on the intro.
First the story. I liked it well enough, though there were a few issues I had (do you really need a robot betraying his master to tell you that the scientist's experimental device is "in the labratore
eeeeee?"). Pretty solid story, if in a genre I'm not terribly into.
On to the intro. I like SE's ideas about where this tendancy comes from. That said, I have another theory (though not necessarily an
alternate theory, since trends like this so rarely have only one root cause).
I think SF is going back into the past because a lot of people are disappointed with how the "future" turned out. You know, the whole "where's my jetpack" thing. I'm mixed about that response, because while I too was raised on stories of rocket ships, humanoid robots, and rayguns (stories which were already seriously showing their age when I first read them), I do think we live in a pretty amazing world today; while we're not flying to the moon for vacation, the majority of SF completely underestimated the development of communications and information technology.
Another aspect of this effect is that even a lot of current "future" SF is still pointed at that rocketsrobotsrayguns future (for that matter, our culture's idea of "future" is, too; how many ads do you see daily for "space-age" technology -- a phrase which literally means "technology from the 50s and 60s?"), without much exploration of the futher development of technologies much more important in today's society (I said "a lot," not "all;" there are
exceptions (also I'm apparently addicted to parenthetical asides today (oh no (it's getting worse)))). So if we're telling the same stories, why not tell them in a world where they were possible? Editors and readers wouldn't likely accept a rogue scientist, working alone, build a working brain-machine interface in a modern story, but you can do it without trouble in a period piece.
That said, SE's explaination in the intro is also compelling, and probably contributes to the effect.