The bureaucracy is likely a bit expansive, and not least it's much too centralized and appears remote to us in the remote countries. But a lot of bureaucracy is needed.
In order to trade in a single market you need single market laws, meaning basically a common (sub)set of rules for product safety, environmental regulation, building codes, ... Having free movement of people needs its own set of common laws. It looks expensive and bureaucratic to agree on the exact standards for everything, and the bureaucracy is very visible when it sits in some glass fort in Brussels.
What we must compare with is the massive bureaucracy of negotiating individual bilateral or block agreements between 20-something countries (and non-EU countries -- deals that can now often be negotiated for all EU countries at once). That is a massive apparatus that each country paid for before the single market.
> what globalism truly demands: a de facto European government, complete with dense regulatory and tax rules,
I smell sarcasm :) A de facto government would be required for having a functioning common currency. The failure of the Euro is really a sign that the union wasn't enough of a state (with a government able to extract taxes, do massive emergency transactions of wealth from rich to poor countries, and with a central bank allowed as a lender of last resort). Because this doesn't exist the Euro can't be successful. The Euro itself is a failed idea. Even though the UK are outside the euro, the troubles of the Euro are likely to have been enough to make a difference in this referendum.
Additionally they never specify the recipient of globalization's "unprecedented wealth". Why should it motivate the average UK voter if they don't profit?
Also, it looks like Brexit will kill the LSE-DB merger. With LSE slated to be the lesser partner, I doubt the move would have been in GB's best interest.