SRS, while I do enjoy occassionally reading academic writing, I tend to steer clear of it for just the reasons you mention. I really admire good academics. But I admire good intellectual writers even more. The latter seem far less prone to the excesses of academic writers. Part of the reason for that, I think, is that writers don't have to focus their writing narrowly to keep directed at a specific audience. Good writers write for themselves first, and don't usually concern themselves with who their audience is, or what their audience will think. Academics do roughly the opposite, because they have to consider their academic discipline audience first.