Yes !

On a more abstract level !

There is an Iwata asks out there, pointing out how the very fist level in SMB is specifically designed to teach the player that you are supposed to jump on Goombas (that they are harmful and bad) and that mushrooms are good for Mario (giving you the chance to survive a hit) with both looking similar is a great example! The level is designed so that you can´t escape the mushroom, but are running in the goomba if you don´t figure out how to jump on him.

without any text !

This is precisely what Inafune refers to!

There are other examples as well: Miyamoto tested how the mushroom should behave to make it fun for the player (stand still, come to the player, move away either slow or fast)...they found out that it was thrilling to chase a mushroom that is barely slower than Mario.

Those are classic examples of good game design, this isn´t meant as "every game should have a Princess in another caste" or something like that !

No it doesn't, I never said that. A comic artist, for example, will take it's main inspiration from old Superman and Batman comics, but if the artist loves what he does and dedicate his life to that, you can't possibly deny they have never seen the Mona Lisa, and se what the painting represents to what they do, and thus they took it as an "inspiration" of sorts, not for their work but for what Leonardo did, and say "I want to be as famous as him and leave my mark in history. I want my comic book to be in a museum just like the Mona Lisa", it sounds cliche sure, but that's how artists feel.

Are you misunderstanding them on purpose ?

This isn´t about good game vs. bad game !

He meant that SMB is a classic game that shows good game design (how the mechanics are teached to the player) !

If you are working in a specific artistic field, you have to know the classics of this particular area to have a well rounded schooling, weather it is comedy, film, literatur,theathre or anything else is moot !

Still not close to GTA V. 

What has GTA V to do with SMB ?

Make no mistake that GTA's core appeal is in the sandbox. If the fundamentals of how you engaged the world sucked, no-one would care about the story or any of the stuff that people drool over. Rockstar excels in making big, fleshed-out worlds, but they too understand that none of it would matter a lick if they didn't keep the core experience tight.

You can be a good director without ever watching the tramp,citizen kane, 2001,blade runner,Vertigo or pulp fiction=
you could be a could developer without ever playing Mario.

The advantage maybe,you are forced to be more originall instead of trying to copy miyamoto.
Too many directors have sold their creativity in favour of copying Tarantino(even the music) and 95% of those movies are crap.

Nintendo as a whole should be playing more frecuently, then.

A good director will take inspiration from Citizen Kane, not copy it. Those are very different things and that's what makes the difference between a good and a bad director.

Someone has been studying Miyamoto's signature.

I think the number of "creators" of videogames that hasn't played Mario is rather low.