Cutting the pages in two columns to give some explanation to figures is odd enough, but is then broken on some pages due to space issues (e.g. page 28).
To me it feels this all was done without care. The content was dropped into some weird style.
Is this written in Word?
I disagree with ancestor comment that the author "breaks" their figure placement; it's done so that figures can be typeset to take up either text-width or page-width, depending on which is preferable for the figure.
This is just an unfortunate requirement of many academic departments for theses, which can’t be avoided by authors.
If you set the document tighter it would look much better. Otherwise the typography is very careful and deliberate. It was very obviously not produced with Word. Word falls over badly when you try to produce this type of document.
I also think the designer is working in a different tradition to the one you value. I see echoes of the work of Donald Tufte, Jost Hochull and Hans Hagen.
Do you mean Edward Tufte?