degrees of accuracy

Yes, I already addressed this.

says things where it's not clear what point Korzybyski tries to make

This sort of writing is only worth the effort of engaging with if there's enough useful or interesting content there to warrant it. So we come back to my question: is there more there than if think from e.g. what Gardner wrote? This still isn't clear to me.

I refer to the quote [...]

... which doesn't say anything about whether he influenced anybody. At least, not when interpreted the way I meant it. Do you define "making a contribution of significance" to mean"influencing people"?