That's assuming that interest rates will stay at the point where you can get a 5.5% ARM. That's also assuming that you can get an appraisal that covers the existing loan balance, and the closing costs to do the refinance. Nobody's going to come up with 3 to 4% of a $200K-plus loan out of their own pockets just to keep the balls juggling in the air for a few more years.
A couple of pretty big assumptions there.
"That's assuming that interest rates will stay at the point where you can get a 5.5% ARM."
Referring back to the article that is the subject of this thread, it wasn't my assumption that interest rates will settle in somewhere lower than 7%, but the authors. That's what the 5.5% was roughly based upon. If rates go higher than the author posits here, then ARM loans go with it, at a proportionally lower rate.