True, but here is - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gutenberg_bible_Old_Testa... - an example of old font. Do you think a lot of people would have problems with reading this?
I don't know. Readability and aesthetics are at odds. I believe there used to be a strong aesthetic desire for text to be of uniformly block-like shape. It took centuries for spaces to appear between words and even longer for paragraphs to become as short as they are today.
I'm not sure. If it's a cafe front, I can deal with Comic-like windings. If I'm reading something for a reasonably long time, I start valuing functionality - here it's readability.
Maybe people could train to read easily that font - they didn't have much of alternatives. That would mean readability is rather conditional. I'd like to know.
I feel like comprehension of the underlying language will aid readability. If it were written in English, despite the illegibility, I'd be able to read it easier by having a general sense of what the words are supposed to be from context.