Thanks for your detailed response. I agree that smashing did a piss-poor job in presenting this stuff - but I think they linked to some examples that do it really well. You are 100% spot-on with the font size/color/weight stuff.

I think the idea with some of the posts is that it allows for random access rather than linear - and I think there is some value in exploring a page to see what it contains for some readers. Quality is still probably the most important aspect as you said.