I don’t know what Brian Micklethwait has been reading lately, but I looked up some Brian’s claims:
1) fixed-quantity of wealth merchant:
Rand explicitly points out that an entrepreneur creates value. See Francisco D’Anconia speech about the morality of making money, (published by Ayn Rand Foundation as a pamphlet), also in Atlas Shrugged pp 387-391 Signet paperback edition especially the passage:
“If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose – because it contains all the others – the fact that they were the people who created the phrase ‘to make money’. No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity – to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favour. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created.The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality.”
Brian declares “My problem is that I so utterly despise Randian philosophy that I cannot make myself take it seriously. I am also put off by the vicious religiosity of so many Randian responses to any criticisms of their sacred texts.”
I don’t think the Randian objection to Brian is his “criticism of their sacred texts”: he doesn’t quote any!
Perhaps their criticism is that Brian probably hasn’t read the “sacred texts” for some twenty years or so.
2) “Altruism”: Brian complains that Randians get all uppity when a libertarian claims to act altruistically. To the extent that this is true, he is right to object to objectively bad manners 
However, my recollection was that there was a distinction between Howard Roark (the take-it-or-leave-it architect in the Fountainhead) and Hank Rearden (the brilliant industrialist in Atlas Shrugged).
When D’Anconia questions Rearden about his motives for creating and putting Rearden Metal on the market see (pp 426-427). No one can read this passage and credibly conclude that Rand thinks entrepreneurs are wrong to think about the general benefit of their actions.
What Rand attacks as “altruism” is the ethical proposition that an action cannot be moral and self-serving at the same time. Rand claims that “altruism” was coined by Auguste Comte. This is confirmed by my French dictionary which also dates the word from 1830. In philosophy, “altruism is defined as the doctrine which considers the devotion to other people’s interests as the ideal rule of morality”. [My translation]
Note that “ideal” in philosophy is not the same as “utopian”: “precise” is a better approximation.
So Rand’s philosophical attack on “altruism” is based on the actual writngs of Auguste Comte, Immanuel Kant and others. (See “For the New Intellectual” p36 New American Library paperback ed.) She attacks among other applications of altruism, the claim that an action is moral if the intentions are good REGARDLESS of outcomes (Kant) [I cheated: I looked at C D Broad’s “Five types of Ethical Theory” p116-139 (ch. on Kant)].
The most delightful description of an altruist comes in the form of Eugene Lawson who at one point claims with pride:
“I can honestly say that I have never made a profit in my life!”
What Rand worshippers do is take the criticism of a system of thought which claims that only selfless actions can be moral, and apply it to every instance of individuals choosing to show compassion, or material generosity, for others.
However, Brian doesn’t frequent the sort of people who actually believe that because a company made a profit, its owners committed a crime against humanity. There is a type of socialist who wishes to replace the word “banker!” as an insult for another word which rhymes with it.
When Rand wrote, these views were more widely held than they are today. Many of those of us who campaigned against such evil nonsense gained the moral confidence to do so from Rand.
So there.
