Are the circuits from Elektor a strong competitor to current solutions?
The circuit from 2006 (and the one from 1981) would work as well as it does today. However, the more modern solutions like the one in
@Niglyn's
massively popular thread are vastly more flexible, generally less sensitive to drift due to component tolerances and operating conditions and the hardware is often easier to build using readily available user-friendly modules. In particular, microcontroller-based solutions can be easily programmed to detect all manner of extreme malfunctions of shutters (curtain opens but never closes etc.), while it would throw off the readings on the more old-fashioned devices based on discrete components.
So it depends a bit on what you consider 'competition' in this regard, but if I were to recommend a solution today, it would be something microcontroller-based, and not the kind of approach that was used 'back in the day'.
It's a bit like a combustion engine in a car; in principle, a carburetor works as well as it did 50 years ago, but all cars today use EFI.