This is the article in question - it does mention that CNNs outperform MLPs, but has no mention of benefits of MLP structure (from what I can tell), so my assumption was that since this was a comparison between them both (the title doesn't mention specifically for image classification), and that no positives were given for MLP, that they were implying that MLP is just an old technique that has been outshined by CNNs.

Thanks for your reply, I'll try out using an MLP, I'm still not sure for the exact reasons but I'm sure I'll work them out as a fiddle with the network parameters.