Regarding the first point, if you are the type of person who just wants it to get to the equations with a minimum of talk, you're probably not the intended audience of this book.

The culture of mathematics (including its lingo) has always been a big barrier for me. Thus far, I've only skimmed it, but that part looks promising to me.

It seems reasonable to guess that if someone has learned a good bit about programming but managed to avoid learning about math, reasons like culture, terminology, accessibility, and motivation might be a big part of why. So including that sort of material in this book makes sense to me.