The good news is now you can't expect anything to happen in a real game so both threads are valid
That's true in the sense that any given individual 2-card combination is much, much less likely to appear than it used to, but
any 2-card combination that substantially changes how you should play the kingdom probably appears more often than it used to if anything since newer cards tend to have more impressive effects, so memorizing the entire list gives you an advantage still, it's just a longer list.
Technically, the 3-card combo list is also just a longer list in exactly the same way, but it's
ridiculously long and most of the 3-card combos in those threads are something you don't have to memorize because it's obvious enough that you'll see it when you come across the kingdom (which is how the person posting it was able to spot it in that game they just played where it was useful in the first place — which is not to say that you can't ever have an outstanding realization about a non-trivial card interaction during a game, but it is naturally a lot easier to have a regular realization that just about anyone else would have too).