Do you think that a love of brevity is "following the crowd"?
I do think people in, say, Victorian England had more time to spend reading lengthy treatises. But, not only was life slower then, there just wasn't as much written information available.
I spend all day reading. Like most people, I have to cut to the bottom line pretty quickly in the material I digest or I wouldn't be able to cover much ground.
As Einstein said, “If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.”
I myself usually skim an article quickly for the meat, esp. in posting an article here so as to provide the reader with it. Those who carelessly just post the leading content, sometimes with repetition extraneous content, are not being mindful and considerate of those who skim the article page for content worth reading.
When you’re paid by the word; and have a word processor, you just gave yourself a raise!