It seems like the style of the article is deliberately long-winded and poetic to match the type of content that the “human readable magazine” is going for (similar to New Yorker articles). It’s likely seeking to cater to a specific niche of reader preferences.
You've got to be kidding me. The sentences are excruciating to read. New Yorker prose is in a different universe. The writing is spare and lucid. You can't evaluate the quality of prose with "wc -w".