I'm surprised this article actually does a decent job covering both sides of the story. When you look at how flexible the ISRs are, and the likelihood these devices will be in service for probably the next 10 years or more, it's not not the worst investment they could make. They're actually well sized for the high schools and other larger sites. Obviously any 3900 series is going to be overkill for a little library but you do have to look at support costs, service contracts, future requirements, future upgrade costs, etc to get the full picture. This is not a 'bridge to nowhere' situation.
You can get an ASA 5505 firewall with all the features you'll ever need for a small library installation for about $1200 retail (hell of a lot less if you're buying, say, 50 of them), and any network engineer who can't handle ASA configuration in his sleep should be fired immediately for gross incompetence.
