I disagree with that take on sophistication. As a counterexample, Hemingway's work is a masterclass on sophisticated prose done with minimal language, but I wouldn't want to read Pride and Prejudice in Hemingway's style. There isn't one yardstick for "sophistication".
The Odyssey is an interesting example of this (and one the author uses). I was taught the Fagles translation. That translation is not easy to read, and in many ways its choice of language is a distraction from studying the literature. I wouldn't pick that translation for my own children, even if I feel that they should at some point study The Odyssey, which I do.
We should be treating these works as what they are: literary classics, but in a historic dialect, where part of the literary exercise is the archeological/anthropological dig through the prose. As far as I can tell, that's how the author is approaching it, and I don't think calling it out that way is lowering any bar.