I like David Foster Wallace as a writer and he’s as much an authority as anyone when it comes to writing well, but I think there’s a pretty major difference in

I like David Foster Wallace as a writer and he’s as much an authority as anyone when it comes to writing well, but I think there’s a pretty major difference in terms of goals and priorities. PG is writing about writing as a means of processing ideas. He’s taking the perspective of a structural engineer, not an architect. While Wallace wrote beautifully, PG is writing about writing usefully, even if that writing is bare and unornamented. And while that may not be your preferred style, I wouldn’t dismiss it as something that someone would want to do.