As someone who has written academic papers and sometimes used such "fancy" words: consider that not everyone is a native english speaker. As a native catalan an

As someone who has written academic papers and sometimes used such "fancy" words: consider that not everyone is a native english speaker. As a native catalan and spanish speaker, there are times where that "fancy" word is easier to come up with than the "standard" one (because "fancy" english words tend to be those that come from latin). Your "ameliorate" example is a good one. In catalan, "millorar" is an extremely common verb meaning "to improve". Hence, I can easily see myself using it at some point, as rare as it may sound to you. I'm not saying it is better to do it this way, what I'm saying is that instead of being so annoyed at the author trying to seem smart, maybe you can shrug it off as a quirk of those who are writing in a foreign language.