Comment by epicide

You can think of it in terms of tolerances. Beej's (and others you mention) style is like a tighter tolerance: it fits to better effect at the cost of fitting in fewer places.

Personally, I'm in the audience that that style works well on, but I can also see how it might be harder for someone to follow that style. e.g. if English isn't their native language. Similarly, I imagine that style is also much harder to localize (not just translate).

I think both techniques are great and I don't think they're mutually exclusive. That is, you can still inject flavor and style within the confines of a technical style guide. You just do so in a way that's less... flamboyant?