Yes, the simpler versions were discovered earlier. The point that my brain wanted to make was that the article, like so many others in science communications, omits parts of the story that would make present discoveries seem less groundbreaking. There was an underlying assumption in the article that Navier-Stokes is all we use, and until this research, we didn't have anything better. Yet drag on satellites, nanofluidics, shock waves all benefit from the extra terms Boltzmann gave us. It adds extra context and would not have been difficult to mention.