It shouldn't have taken any effort; it was too wordy, too full of famous names and too arrogantly immodest not to find a bit of fault in the end.
On this point, I disagree completely: Any essay worth reading should be expected to require effort on the part of the reader. Furthermore, as you can probably tell from my posts to you, I actually enjoy reading (and writing) wordy documents. Precision is important, and I only embrace brevity (and only expect others to do so) if the exact meaning of the text is preserved.
I do not believe that the writer could have crafted his essay in a substantially smaller number of words.
too full of famous names and too arrogantly immodest not to find a bit of fault in the end.
As to these counts, I thought, while reading the essay, that the writer was using names in a justifiable way to make his arguments, and was in no way either arrogant or immodest. Clearly, we must agree to differ on these points.