Can you double check that? You have a space between -off and -bool, is that correct? I tried it, restarting finder with "killall -KILL Finder" but I still see the animation.
I just tried it myself, and the defaults line is correct. However, he says you then have to kill Finder, which is wrong. the proper thing to type next is:
killall Dock
... which finally causes the setting to take effect.
defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-swoosh-animation-off -bool YES
restart finder.
No more annoying animation. This + number key bindings make it so it is as fast as xmonad to switch desktops.