The problem is even more complex than your cited article reveals. Creating circuits, especially "analog/linear" circuits integrated onto silicon (or germanium or whatever) offers a much wider array of options than soldering discrete components together. Virtually all integrated circuits down to the most primitive and simple take advantage of these design options. When you see a schematic for an integrated circuit, note very carefully that it is not an ACTUAL circuit schematic diagram, it is only an "equivalent" circuit. It means only to "suggest" the operation of the circuit if you had implemented it with discrete transistors, resistors, etc. It doesn't mean that you can actually create a functionally equivalent circuit out of discrete components.
OTOH, there ARE discrete-component op-amp circuits available which ARE designed to construct from discrete components. Of course all op-amps were originally implemented with fire-bottles ("tubes" or "valves") And then with discrete transistors, resistors, diodes, etc. In the audiophool world there are still people who make op-amps from discrete components. Some are constructed so that they will plug into an 8=pin DIP socket:

And there are the modular-size opamps that API borrowed from analog computing back in the early 1960s, their famous 2520. Some of these are still available from people who continue to clone these vintage parts, in kit form, or assembled and tested.

And there are more recent circuits such as the popular Jensen 990 op-amp which continues to be favored by people in search of that particular sound of discrete opamps and $100 transformers.


Note that even the discrete-component versions "cheat" and use monolithic/integrated matched-pair input transistors. A device that was abandoned first by National Semiconductor, and then by Texas Instruments (who bought out National and Burr-Brown), and then by Analog Devices (who bought-out SolidState Devices). So it is harder and harder to create a discrete op-amp with performance anywhere equivalent to modern monolithic ICs at a tiny fraction of the price.