I haven't read this paper in full so really can't comment on most details.

However, it is no surprise to any geologist who has been working in the southern or central Cal area that so many of our faults are not basically strike/slip. The San Andreas makes a big turn to the left here, so a compressional regime is expected. Also, there are many studies regarding the separate "terranes" or landmasses that constitute this region, and many of them show some dramatic rotational movement. The idea that fault-bound landmasses caught in a larger tectonic boundary can rotate it not new, not unusual. There is discussion that the Pacific/NoAmerica boundary is very large anyway, and may be trying to shift from the San Andreas to the Walker zone via Death Valley, etc.

Try squeezing a bunch of dominoes between your hands and watch where they go! In fact, take a wet paper towel, put your hands on both sides, and move one up and one down...slowly. Watch where it tears! The cub scouts used to love this one. Shows what can happen in a large, messy boundary between two major tectonic plates.

Anyway...nothing shocking here in these ideas. California is a geologic mess, always has been. Plus--many faults have both lateral and vertical movement on them. CALIFORNIA geologists (we are often asterisked in listings!) are accustomed to dealing with very strange land arrangements. We are still learning!