We do have baroque styles today, but they're different from classical baroque literature. They're the postings that start with a bio and cover the author's hobbies before getting to the point, perhaps including an anecdote from the author's past. There are writers who can make that interesting, and you can read them in the New Yorker. But the serious magazines have editors. In blog postings, you're reading the slush pile.

I believe that this may be true of prose (it depends on the style of the author and the nature of what's being written,) but that it's untrue of every other form of written communication, and acclaimed prose stylists are often very poor letter-writers for just this reason. In writing non-prose, I find that there are only two rules:

1. Be as clear as possible.

2. Be as brief as possible, but do not veer into the intentionally laconic or abbreviated.

I also am absolutely certain that attempting to attain maximal elegance is a trap that leads directly to purple prose, to works of literature that cannot naturally be read out loud, and to other unfortunate outcomes.

If you're writing for yourself (and maybe a very small number of equally erudite readers) cut loose! Embrace "anfractuous density and heedless flamboyance." But if you're trying to change people's minds, or share knowledge widely, everything in this essay is defiantly at odds with what's necessary to get the rest of the world to pay attention.

Because of current slang, I read this as “peaced out” then realized it’s “pieced out”. Peace out