I have my own long, long column I'm working on (for TechCrunch, no less) on this topic. Nice to see Jon chiming in, but I think he dismisses the usefulness of the type of essentially formal prose being replaced by more conversational stuff. If you ask me, it's important to consider the strengths of the old way as well as the new one, which is what I'm attempting to do (4000 words and counting...).

Also, I disagree with the idea that SWE, or however you like to define it, works as a "mask." I express myself best in that language, personally, and I suspect many others do too. Conventional, "prescriptivist" English is to me very powerful, because the words all have agreed-upon meanings and relationships -- when you break those down, you allow new modes of expression but you reduce cointelligibility.