Why Is Academic Writing So Academic?

Somewhat interesting article explaining the reasons behind the aspects that lead many to consider academic writing so terrible. For the most part, I agree: in my experience, the academic community — or, at the very least, the subset involved in literary pursuits — is incredibly out of touch with not only current trends in their professed field of interest, but averse and close-minded to change in that field as well. This is especially true — painfully so — of those who for some reason believe that they are bucking the system — particularly the ones who graduated within the last few years — and put down that old five paragraph format as outdated before going on to teach their favorite derivation of it. Unfortunately, I am nowhere near as confident in the revival of this once-praiseworthy system as Joshua Rothman is: if the academic community cannot change their writing style, what hope do we have that they will bring about meaningful change to the underlying system?