oh, and also, the entire point is that neither is "inherently better"... both have pros and cons
On the flip side, "normalization" doesn't have that same inherent good-ness. All things being equal (including performance) there isn't any inherent drive toward more normalization, maybe because a faster performing page will have clear impact to the user while a more normalized data structure would be completely transparent to the user?
with my point about normalization being easier to understand I meant to say that it is easier for a developer learning about the schema.
if I recall ok, I think there's also something about data de-duplication in a normalized database. without this normalization, you could get a lot of repetition, which would actually require to update the same data in multiple places or find some other way to deal with different data about the same entity (some sort of de-synchronization is more likely without normalized schemas).
in any case, I'll grant you that normalization should never be 'the' goal for a database.
Example: When you have the same data in two places, which is authoritative? If they disagree, which one is right?
And querying data reliably is much easier when you've got good relations that can be relied on to be accurate. SQL is almost a masterpiece (though imho it should have been FROM, WHERE, SELECT).