I believe this is an attempt at vulgarization, as the exact opposite effect happens for anglo-saxon non-scientist readers when they come across metric units...

I'm unfamiliar with Anglo-Saxon used like this. Do you mean people from the US?

The British still use imperial for "informal" usages as well, which I think is what the other commentator had in mind.

Nah, we don't do anything like as consistent and understandable as that. We use a random mixture of imperial and metric measurements where the "right" one to use in each context is determined by cultural norms.

E.g. we measure petrol in litres, beer in pints, wine in litres (but actually centilitres), long distances in miles, short distances in metres, weights of people in stones, weights of everything else in kilograms (except home cooking which is split between imperial and metric) and fuel efficiency in miles per gallon.

The fuel efficiency one is really dumb given that we buy fuel in litres.

I meant US/british ;-)