You maybe confused between the "power supply" project and the "usb power supply" project, they're not the same.
I think Dave put the 'power supply' project on hold indefinitely while he works on the 'usb power supply' project.
The 'usb powersupply' project was designed to be really small, so it can be thrown into a laptop bag, SMD is a must to get the size down to that level.
Where as the 'power supply' project was intended to sit on your electronics desk.
But i seem to remember he did plan to use one or two SMT ICs due to them not being available in DIP. The rest was through-hole though. With rotary encoders, RGB LCD etc...