I feel that this piece was trying to convey some quite profound emotions, and quite successfully so, but the insistence on non-capitalization was just getting in the way of this main effort.

We don't know what the author tried to optimize. Maybe it was for the number of times the Shift key was pressed. Maybe it was for the author's convenience.

What we know is that the author did NOT optimize for: - efficiency of transmitted information - readers' convenience - ease of reading

And this is the exact reason why it was so bad.