I’m not qualified to say exactly why, but the team was stressing that Starship is big enough that it “punches a hole through the atmosphere”

I think Starship is just wider than most spacecraft which have reentered so far, and so the plasma doesn’t completely surround the vehicle. I think the Space Shuttle also had a small hole in the plasma near the tail, through which communications could be sent. Smaller gumdrop-shaped capsules (like Dragon and Soyuz) are completely enveloped in plasma, and thus experience blackout periods.