wanting your work to appear hard

[harristeague]

You mention that there may be perverse motivations like "wanting your work to appear hard." I would offer that it may be more than this. My experience is that people tend to value more the work that they have to struggle more to understand. This could be related to our natural tendencies in general (hazing, early parenting, for example). Thus people want their work to appear hard not because of perverse motivations but rather because, unfortunately, it works. If you agree that this issue may be a detractor to quality distilling (in addition to "no support for distillers"), it would be beneficial to address it directly. Readers who simply have this clearly in mind may be less likely to give more credit to a more obtuse exposition.