Well, I was thinking more of the language you see in (e.g.) continental philosophy than in science and math, but that might just be reflecting my skillset: I've got a much better compatibility mode for scientific language.

That aside, though, I think there probably is a formalism treadmill in science, but I suspect it'd be more prominent in fields that intersect broadly with the public than in disciplines or branches of disciplines that mostly talk within themselves (where your "to hell with laypeople" explanation seems to suffice). We can distinguish between the two by checking the stability of language: if preferred terms change rapidly as older ones enter the lay lexicon, there's probably a need for formalism. If they don't, there probably isn't -- even if popular (mis)use of (e.g.) Heisenberg's uncertainty principle tends to drive professionals in the discipline a little crazy.

Outside of contentious popular science topics, I'd say we tend to see that sort of unstable language in psychology and to a lesser extent in medicine. Makes sense; I can think of reasons for both to find cache misses useful when dealing with the public.