No, I totally don't get the Economist. People always tell me to read it. Smart people. Then I read it, and it's like a 9th grader's book report, as you say. It's a hair better than Time magazine or Newsweek.
Well, it is called The Economist. If you expect to read intelligent analysis of medical conditions, I suggest you look elsewhere. The Economist is good at providing analysis of economical and business matters. I read it for those components and ignore the rest.
Their coverage of world politics and other topics is also very good. Only the Science and Technology section is appallingly and depressingly bad.
Then again, that may just be a result of us knowing a lot about Science and Technology. I wonder if those who are experts in economics and those other fields The Economist supposedly covers with skill think the same things about it covers their area of expertise.
I wonder the same, but from people I trust and what I do know, it seems that they are better than pretty much anything else being published this days. Their Science and Tech section is clearly not better than alternatives, and in many ways much worse.