"I often find long-form writing that is not brie..."

I often find long-form writing that is not brief is valuable for giving the reader time to digest ideas before you throw the next one at them. At least when I'm reading I like to have some filler between the ideas to give me time to digest a thought and get to the next one. If you take away the transitions, stories, and evidence that resides between compact insights you eliminate the opportunity to think while reading. This is why I'm often disappointed my own writing feels as dense as it does and I often try to work on making it less dense so the reader has more space to think before I throw the next context-laden sentence at them.