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The EFA vs. CFA question was a stickler for one peer reviewer, and I can understand why. When measurement is based on strong theory, then I believe that CFA is preferable to EFA. But that was rarely the case in these datasets.

I suspect that this factor was so strong because it consisted of only four observed variables, and three of them were written measures of verbal content. All of the verbal cariables correlated r = .72 to .89. Even the "non-verbal" variable (numerical ability) correlates r = .72 to .81 with the other three variables (Rehna & Hanif, 2017, p. 25). Given these strong correlations, a very strong first factor is almost inevitable.

This factor may be weak because the sample consists of Sudanese gifted children, which may have restricted the range of correlations in the dataset.

My colleague, Roberto Colom, stated in his blog (link below) that he would have discarded samples with fewer than 100 individuals. This is a legitimate analysis decision. See his other commentary (in Spanish) at https://robertocolom.wordpress.com/2018/06/01/la-universalidad-del-factor-general-de-inteligencia-g/