Even if you were to take the extreme position that influence or citation counts are all that matter, the problem is that 'future influence' is hard if not impos

Even if you were to take the extreme position that influence or citation counts are all that matter, the problem is that 'future influence' is hard if not impossible to judge well in the present. (Of course it's easy to point to cases where it's possible to make an educated or confident guess.) Also, an emphasis on clarity and intellectual depth/rigor is important for the healthy development of a field. Not for nothing, the lack of this emphasis is a pretty common criticism of the whole AI field!