Running rich, as the video points out, can contribute to poor performance. Why not lean out the mixture and then add the CAI to do the tests?
The MCM boys were talking about NOTICABLE hp/trq gains. In their tests the car achieved gains, under the best circumstances, of about 1.3 percent. Not really impressive to most of us. Also under consideration is the DIY/affordability component.
CAIs, in many cases, improve performance. Is it noticeable? No. Does it sounds nice? Yes. Does it look cool? Yep. Is that worth $300+/-? It's your call.
To believe the numbers foisted on us by the CAI manufacturers you'd have to believe that the OEM engineers are so stupid that they didn't see this problem themselves, and even if they did they ignored it. That's a tough sell. Every aspect of every vehicle ever manufactured is a compromise of weight, length, horse power, fuel, tire size, etc. ad infinitum in favor of the basic intended purpose of the vehicle. Think Corvette vs. F-150.
All that said, I may still get one so I can enjoy the sound and look cool. :-)

 

All you did was validate my points. Some cars, especially turbo'd ones run very rich from the factory. By adding an intake it helped the A/FR which in turn made more power. Obviously by going even further and tuning it would create even more power and most people will tell you that if you are going to do a intake you should also have it tuned to take full advantage of it.

I'm not saying that intakes are the miracle upgrade and don't believe most of the companies claims as to gains either. However, on lots of cars they do in fact get good gains and to have used that video to prove a point is crazy. For the most part they seem to be a logical and proven part of a set of upgrades that should be done including a tune and exhaust/headers depending on the vehicle type of course.