You have a strange definition of interesting. Even dynamically typed languages are used in a static way most of the time; this is why JavaScript engines can perform well on most code. A type system without generics can still find plenty of bugs.
I'd agree with his definition and your point simultaneously. Type system with only 0-th order types are still useful for optimization and error capture, but higher order structures and higher order polymorphism are both incredibly useful and more powerful than 0-th order types.
