Give me complicated syntax over unclear ideas any day.

There are a handful of truly gifted writers who manage to write simply about complex ideas, but complicated ideas tend to force you into a really tedious process of making distinctions, or repeating which one of a set of closely related ideas you are referring to in a given clause.

So yes, academic style is often more readable for professors than the alternative. That doesn't mean there isn't crap out there: that Flaubert piece does not feel like it's using jargon in a way that clarifies anything to anyone, academic or otherwise. However, it's not my area of expertise, so I can only voice a suspicion.

(Not a professor, but I spent four years in grad school, originally hoping for a PhD and research position).