Actually, you would write that query as:

    var q = from m in grains.OfType<Salt>()
            where m.Value.Contains(null)
            orderby m.irrelevance
            select m;

    return q.FirstOrDefault();

which fits in 80 characters on one screen. From this post and your reply, it seems like the your complaint is that LINQ is hard to understand if you write it poorly. But that's true of most programming.