Keeping in mind that the above referenced essay admittedly is trying to explain Bombadil as a literary device or perhaps more exactly a literary Touchstone for the reader to identify with, I do see alot of merit in the idea, but Barb says right in the begining that this theory takes place outside of the Legendarium.
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I would go further and say that the whole scene with Tom Bombadil is a necessary gateway between the child's world of The Hobbit and the adult adventure of The Lord of the Ring.
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This I by and large agree with, though with Shadows of the past, and more viscerally with the meeting of Gildor's Company, the 'adult adventure' world is rapidly closing in.
So I can not take 'Bombadil as reader' to be an answer to 'who he is', but rather a very good example of 'how he functions as a literary device'.