... but the fact is that the language used was overblown and turgid, and often not helpful.
During the last 12 months and more I have spent some considerable time working in the Trainz Wiki editing some of that "overblown and turgid" language, as well as adding my own pages to the wiki (which others have edited to improve my occasionally "overblown and turgid" language - editing which I am grateful for).
One of the problems with technical documentation is that it is often (but not always) written by the "techies" who created the software/hardware in the first place. While these are obviously the best qualified people to understand the software/hardware and how it works etc, there is an old adage that I have always found to be useful and, more often than not, true - "Never let the programmers write the user documentation".
Obviously, my opinion only.