I had a post with most of the same stuff you said saved for after lunch but you beat me to it with a more precise explanation. I haven't touched C in years but it wasn't difficult to understand the code, though a couple of comments would have made it quicker to parse.

Perhaps this is the effect that high level languages are having on developers - anything that DoesntHaveExplicitNames is classed as confusing and syntax flexibility is seen as wrong. In the web development field, I often get weird looks for writing one line if statement bodies. A ternary operator usually yields furrowed eyebrows for a few seconds. An issue of style over substance, IMO.

Then again, I'm sure that ASM developers looked at C developers the same way.