There is a difference between assessment/evaluation and feedback, and the teacher may simply have the aversion to assessment/evaluation. That is, that one can provide excellent feedback without the feeling of evaluation. The focus is simply different but can have a major impact, and should result in the complete opposite of making you feel cheated (receiving feedback for feedback's sake, rather than for artificial reasons such as grades).
Simply receiving feedback without grades means the only factor that leads to action is an intrinsic motivation, meaning learning and accomplishment are the most important things for the student. Assessment/evaluation always has a component of extrinsic motivation present (ie. an artificial targets), which often leads to the importance of grades over learning. Importance of grades over learning leads to shallow-learning practices, which often leads to horrible retention and a dislike for learning... and so the self-destructive process often proceeds.
Great! It sounds like we're just using the terminology differently (and perhaps the same is true for ajjuliani and myself).
When young students improve as writers, they broaden their executive function in which, in large part, they learn distance themselves from the writing. They learn to assess it independently from themselves as the writer. As a teacher of writing, one of your goals is to develop these functions, to teach the student how to assess their own writing. Usually this comes in the form of pointing out when they have done in naturally, or showing them how you do it by writing in real time in front of them (or using other students as examples).
I think it's the same in other subjects. Giving students time and freedom is just the start, and we agree about the importance of providing some sort of assessment/evaluation/feedback about the work that's outside the realm of grades and external consequences. But formal assessments done well in such a program are one of the most important things you are teaching.
To relate this specifically to the article, to just give students time and rely (essentially) on public shaming to hold them accountable isn't enough. In addition to giving the student ownership of the project topic and ownership of time management, we can give the student ownership over his/her (formal and informal) assessment, too, and of course use it.
Simply receiving feedback without grades means the only factor that leads to action is an intrinsic motivation, meaning learning and accomplishment are the most important things for the student. Assessment/evaluation always has a component of extrinsic motivation present (ie. an artificial targets), which often leads to the importance of grades over learning. Importance of grades over learning leads to shallow-learning practices, which often leads to horrible retention and a dislike for learning... and so the self-destructive process often proceeds.