Yes, it could have been shorter, and that would probably have been clearer.

It also could have been a lot longer; I was somewhat torn by the apparent inconsistency of demanding documentation of thought-processes while not documenting my own -- but I did manage to convince myself that if anyone actually questioned the conclusions, I could go into more detail. I cut out large chunks of it after deciding that this was a better strategy than trying to Explain All The Things.

It could probably have been shorter still, though -- I ended up arriving at some fairly simple conclusions after a very roundabout process, and perhaps I didn't need to leave as much of the scaffolding and detritus in place as I did. I was already on the 4th major revision, though, having used up several days of available-focus-time on it, and after a couple of peer-reviews I figured it was time to publish, imperfections or no... especially when a major piece of my argument is about the process of error-correction through rational dialogue.

Will comment on your content-related points separately.