But a lot of the other words make it entertaining. Cutting it down to a few power-point slides full of bullets would be a lot more concise, but also boring (and therefore less effective).
Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte. -- Blaise Pascal, Lettres provinciales, letter 16, 1657. (I am sorry for the length of my letter, but I had not the time to write a short one.)
Paul, I agree it needs to attract, entertain, and hold the reader but feel the verbosity is laziness in editing rather than style.
My understanding is that PG spends weeks writing and editing his longer essays. The result is obviously much more solid and digestible, but I'd definitely trade some of that solidity for more quantity. That might be key the difference between a blogger and an essayist.