Well as someone who generally uses windower with most of the bells and whistles, but doesn't use windower on my laptop, I'm pretty certain that Dragonli is just a butt-hurt knob. Everything I do with windower, I can do without, it's just a pain in the arse. For every spell I cast, and changing back to TP gear, it's an extra macro I have to hit, it's not so much that it's harder, it's just a pain in the ***.
Distance, I can do with radar and sight, but it's easier and faster with windower.
Tp'ing with other people, again, easier and more accurate with windower, but in a party situation you get a definite feel for how fast other people gain tp in comparison, that really isn't a difficult thing to do.
Status timers aren't an issue, you get a message when they run out anyway. Recast is handy, but again, not needed. Big three I have a pretty damn good feel for when they're up, same with Utsusemi. Besides, if it's not up when I need it, I put /recast "Utsusemi: Ichi" into my macro, and it either casts, or tells me how long until I can.
No-one, I repeat NO-ONE can tell the difference with me whether I'm using windower or if I'm playing on my laptop, the only person that can tell is me, because I'm hitting twice as many macros, working twice as hard, and generally having half as much fun.
So in answer to Dragonli's question. I don't NEED windower at all. But FFXI has a lot of stuff that's fairly out-dated and sluggish. Windower adds a bunch of features that are all fairly small in and of themselves, but putting them all together just makes the game that much more stream-lined, and puts some more enjoyment into it. While the game may be "designed to be challenging" NO game should be challenging simply because of a sluggish interface and controls. The game is still challenging with windower, I don't have a "insta-kill NM" button, I don't bot, I don't use APradar, I just have a little more info directly visible to myself.
But anyway, I highly doubt every part of this guys story, partly because even with his methods of catching people out, aside for the tp one which most people wouldn't actually fall for that easily, there's still no way to prove any of the things he mentioned. But on top of that, I mainly don't believe him because if he's seen so many people go to Mordion Gaol, he'd probably know how to spell it.