The taxi-l site is easily the best of its kind, but having read a lot of the stuff on there a few years ago, it prepared me for the fact that the OFT wouldn't demonstrate much of an insight into the trade.
However, the site gave me my first real insights into the issues (primarily restricted numbers) and, who knows, without it this site may never have existed, which would have been a great shame.
As for the Edinburgh paper, there's some interesting stuff in it, but in essence it looks like a glorified version of the 'deregualtion for trains and buses didn't work ergo it won't work for taxis' stuff that can be quite regularly found in Taxi Talk.
Of course, the paper doesn't mention things like plate premiums, presumably because the author is pro-restrictions, but remember that the author has done work for the Scottish Taxi Federation, so the veneer of academic indpependece that may be suggested by the paper is presumably just that.