Yeah that's always a tricky stylistic choice - I include them because I know some readers prefer to scan headlines as opposed to reading every word, and I want to help them take something useful away, too. Though I do really appreciate thorough readers like you so I hope it's not too off putting :)

FYI, pull quotes usually duplicate segments of writing from the article body---they're the article quoting itself, pulling out the highlights. You're supposed to be able to skip over them when reading the full article.

~~~~ "they're the article quoting itself, pulling out the highlights" ~~~~

Like this comment: the pull quote was already present in the text.

You could pull them to the right of the main text: there's plenty of room. :)

plus the font changes, and the bold. I don't know if it scientifically qualifies as cognitive load, but it looks like a jumble to me.