I've never had any trouble publishing in a more conversational style and have read plenty of papers that do the same. Of course, this varies by field and venue and format (journal vs. conference) and even reviewer and it's difficult to understand what the true constraints are and what the state of the publishing system is in this regard.
But I suspect that a lot of academic's feelings about it are informed by what others have told them and how they've been trained, rather than by what's actually permissible in the publishing system.
I've never had any trouble publishing in a more conversational style and have read plenty of papers that do the same. Of course, this varies by field and venue and format (journal vs. conference) and even reviewer and it's difficult to understand what the true constraints are and what the state of the publishing system is in this regard.
But I suspect that a lot of academic's feelings about it are informed by what others have told them and how they've been trained, rather than by what's actually permissible in the publishing system.