I disagree with the notion taught in English composition that every composition must have a "general significance".

That's a Less Wrong rule, not one from English composition. And it doesn't mean you have to force-fit each point into supporting a central thesis, just that you should make clear what the signficance of your post is in the context of this site.

think what you object to is actually the un-vague way that it spends all its time listing specifics, rather than vaguely unifying and summarizing.

If each part were clear, I wouldn't have to rely on later passages to disambiguate meaning. See my example here.

(Okay, no the meta-talk has exceede the post length ... bad sign.)