Straw man - i wasn't talking about cost, hard drive space, or any relation near what you're referring to.
> ...articles that are usually at least 100 pages long. These articles tend to be well-respected and highly cited.
Another straw man - why does length (short or long) correlate with quality again?
> Longer articles have many advantages in allowing for a more in-depth explanation
Ah the real comment. Ok. I definitely agree - longer usually means more space to explain.
> and it is certainly not the case that every reader wants papers shoe-horned into an artificial page limit.
So be it. There's usually an appendix or supplementary materials that can offer expanded derivations. Often the authors trim a lot of the fat for the published paper and put a longer version in a book/thesis.
> What a strange attitude!
As a writer of publications i want more space and agree, but as a reader of publications (way more than i write) there's just too much out there to spend my time going through 50+ pages. I can put in the time for 10-20 pages and if i still want more i'll check out other publications, appendix, supplementary, thesis...whatever. It's an important and necessary skill for academics to be able to concisely present their work - not just for publications, but for grant applications, presentations, etc.