Popular science has been trying to explain quantum mechanics to people for well over half a century now, and it hasn't worked one time. All we got was a bunch of woo like What the Bleep do We Know?! You need math. There's no other way around it. Any understanding of quantum mechanics or computing that is not fundamentally rooted in mathematical reasoning is worse than mush.

It was incredibly helpful to me though. Now I feel like maybe I could actually grok quantum computing.

Have you seen Dave Jone's video on quantum computing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOQhdgY8aBM

Most advantages that quantum computing has aren't practical for most people outside "the HN tech bubble". It's meant for specialized types of high throughput computations.