Microsoft's defense is obvious and already discussed in the article: "we issued guidance telling people what to do, so it's not our fault that people don't listen."
The issue is that, as a provider of a massive infrastructure product, Microsoft needs to contend with the reality that most people simply don't read. Of those who do, only a small portion will have the time, inclination, or resources to harden a(n often legacy) network according to constantly-updating advice, especially when you factor in the pain point of retraining users.
Governments face a similar problem when designing laws. If everyone simply behaved, then we'd have no need for them. The presumption that enough people won't behave (maliciously or due to incompetence) as to cause aggregate dangers/harms is enough justification to introduce and enforce rules.
Big companies want the benefits of being "big" without taking responsibility for being the referee. And while in a narrow sense you can make an argument for that, you'll never see any executives admitting "our product is good unless you don't follow x, y, z recommendations published regularly unless there's a zero-day".
