As for one 100-page essay, you should definitely be able to understand the idea within 90 pages (hopefully 10 pages). The author might need 100 pages to close off all major counterarguments, cite precedence, explore some second-order tradeoffs, underscore the importance of their argument using evidence, and lay the groundwork for future areas of investigation.
We could say "just cut out that stuff" but that weakens the essay and makes it shallow. Instead, it's uo to the reader to skip it if they don't have time or interest. But then they should also hold off on dismissing it based on counterarguments for which they declined to read the provided rebuttals.
That does not change anything to my point: saying "just stop reading a novel whenever you want" is not incompatible with "essays should get to the point".
Even if you are right, you still acknowledge that you need a "core" explanation for the essay and that stopping before finishing it is not enough to grasp the idea properly. The only things the author of the article says is that it's better if the core explanation is not stretched in length for no real reason. So, it demonstrates that it is not the same as for a novel. The so-called "paradox" or "hypocrisy" does not exist.
It's like pretending that someone is hypocritical if they both say "I like movies where the main character does a lot of fighting" and "I really don't like the fact that my physics professor does a lot of fighting during their lecture".
As for one 100-page essay, you should definitely be able to understand the idea within 90 pages (hopefully 10 pages). The author might need 100 pages to close off all major counterarguments, cite precedence, explore some second-order tradeoffs, underscore the importance of their argument using evidence, and lay the groundwork for future areas of investigation.
We could say "just cut out that stuff" but that weakens the essay and makes it shallow. Instead, it's uo to the reader to skip it if they don't have time or interest. But then they should also hold off on dismissing it based on counterarguments for which they declined to read the provided rebuttals.