[7bit]

"Appeal to" and "being understood by" are two different things.

You can write a text that appeals to a small audience, but is understood by a big audience.

You can also write a text that would appeal to a big audience - but doesn't because no one understands it.

It's not hard to write a text that can be understood by a large audience. Using an analogy that only some people understand is counter productive as analogies are used exactly to allow the audience to illustrate the problem.

[malux85]

The core of my response was not about appealing vs understanding, but about the objective function being to max(number) with whatever operator (appeal or understand)

But you demonstrated that in a beautiful way with your misunderstanding! How wonderfully meta! QED