I don't think I've ever met a Norman piece I didn't love :).
I also really liked Aldin's quote about how personas give "a common language around experience, so designers, engineers, and marketing people can all...talk about the product" and its audience. This is the "yes, but would Suzy like it?" element that I think can really help designers from overlooking elements they might otherwise ignore when designing for a generic "user."
Readings about personas, scenarios, and brainstorming always make me think of my experience with improv. In improv, you try to (in a split second!) come up with a setting (scenario), relationship (personas), conflict, and complication (both brainstorming, I think). Your fellow performers then accept (reserving judgment) the reality you (as the expert informant) have created, and use the "yes, and" to come up with alternative solutions to the problem (more brainstorming/prototyping).
Maybe this is a stretch, but if you continue with the metaphor, the one thing that's missing in the article (except perhaps the discussion of the couple and grandparents) is the idea of relationships. We've been learning how much of learning is social, and how we should keep this in mind when designing learning spaces. So perhaps in addition to creating personas for individuals, we should also be thinking in terms of of different personas within a pair or group. So it becomes "what would Suzy and Bob want?" how do we satisfy their individual needs and desires while also making sure we help them enjoy and learn from their interaction as a couple.
Re: personas as a tool for communication. I so wish we had used this at my last job, where so many different departments and companies and sponsors had to work together! I hope that within our project groups, we also use personas (a step that is often skipped) in order to foster communication because communication is key to a successful group, and we should use every tool available to us to make sure it happens!