I think some of my time spent reading articles in the sequences was well spent, and the rest was split between two alternatives: 1) in a minority of cases where the reading didn't feel useful, it was about something I already felt I understood, and 2) in a majority of such cases, it wasn't connected to something I was already curious about.

It's explained a bit better in the longer version of the above comment (which now appears to be homeless). But I think the sequences, or at least the admonition to read them all, are targeted at someone who has done some reading or at least thinking about their subjects before. Not because they demand prior knowledge, but because they demand prior interest. You may have underestimated how much of a newbie you have on your hands.

It's not that I'm claiming to be so smart that I can participate fully in the discussions without reading up on the fundamentals, it's that participating or even just watching the discussion is the thing that's piquing my interest in the subjects in the first place. It feels less like asking me to read about basic physics before trying to set up a physics experiment, and more like asking me to read about music theory without ever having heard any music. It's just not as meaningful before having observed what it's good for--and even a highly talented and technical musician would admit that attending a performance with other people is more interesting than doing theory homework, even if they have a very clever theory teacher who makes the lessons into little stories.

Just to put this into perspective, I don't think any of the above is nearly as significant to my reading habits as the simple amount of material in the sequences. I do keep reading bits and pieces, but how much time in a day I'm able or even willing to focus on it is finite. I've spent a lot of time this week reading LW when I could have been out getting vitamin D or practicing the guitar, and at the current rate it would still take me quite a while to get through all the sequences (less, but not a trivial amount, to get through just the core sequences). That's a time commitment it's difficult to justify if I'm to make it before being allowed to discuss the ideas with human beings in the current blog.

I guess there are two theses here: that the sequences are good at bestowing information, but the current posts are better at garnering interest in them; and that the latter is simply more enjoyable, because it's interactive. (I, like some other commenters here, read LW as play, not work; if it weren't fun I wouldn't be here.) If you want to convince people to read the sequences before participating, those are your obstacles.