[_Jim]

If I had been taught, in composition class, that the purpose was to lay down as much BS in as flowery language as I could muster, I would have done MUCH better.

[sparklite2]

lay down as much BS in as flowery language as I could muster,

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I find word choice to be a zero sum game with communicating. The more precisely you want to describe something, you increasingly use words outside of the common spoken vocabulary. The chance of baffling the reader, ie , failing to communicate, grows with precision.

So you use a dumbed down vocabulary that loses information in the resulting ambiguity. It is a balancing act. What you call flowery language, in the hands of a serious writer, is an attempt to pin point something. Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn’t. Know your audience. And if your audience is too broad, or you don’t know them, the average compression level in the US, is, sadly, at fifth grade level so that’s what you use.