I think what you're describing is phase shift (typically seen with inductive loads), where the current sine is the right form, but lags behind the voltage sine.
The (fifth) footnote in the article has "The difficulty comes from the nonlinear diode bridge, which charges the input capacitor only at peaks of the AC signal." And "If you're familiar with power factors due to phase shift, this is totally different. The problem is the non-sinusoidal current, not a phase shift."
So the demand looks like inrush current - but inrush at every single cycle. This produces a non-constant load, where the current draw instead graphs more like an ECG and less like a sine wave. If you overlay this ECG-style graph over a perfect sine, you see that to average the same draw, the spike has to peak much higher than the sine - because it's drawing nothing for the rest of the cycle.
The net result is basically the same (which is why both problems come under 'power factor') - you're drawing current in a very inefficient manner - but that's why I'm describing 'drawing more than the claimed wattage', because at the peak of each cycle, you do.
The (fifth) footnote in the article has "The difficulty comes from the nonlinear diode bridge, which charges the input capacitor only at peaks of the AC signal." And "If you're familiar with power factors due to phase shift, this is totally different. The problem is the non-sinusoidal current, not a phase shift."
So the demand looks like inrush current - but inrush at every single cycle. This produces a non-constant load, where the current draw instead graphs more like an ECG and less like a sine wave. If you overlay this ECG-style graph over a perfect sine, you see that to average the same draw, the spike has to peak much higher than the sine - because it's drawing nothing for the rest of the cycle.
The net result is basically the same (which is why both problems come under 'power factor') - you're drawing current in a very inefficient manner - but that's why I'm describing 'drawing more than the claimed wattage', because at the peak of each cycle, you do.